GUI for multiplatform multimedia project

Philip Semanchuk philip at semanchuk.com
Wed Jan 6 22:53:01 EST 2010


On Jan 6, 2010, at 4:53 PM, <trzewiczek at trzewiczek.info> <trzewiczek at trzewiczek.info 
 > wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> I posted that question on a python-forum, but got answer, so I ask  
> here.
>
> I'm working on an artistic project and I'm looking for the best
> cross-platform GUI solution. The problem is that it's gonna be a  
> tool that
> will have to be double-click installable/runnable and pre- 
> installation of
> any libraries for end-users is very much like an evil. It really has  
> to be
> double-click tool
>
> My first thought was PyQt, because it's a real framework with a lot of
> stuff inside (including Phonon) and I know some cross-platform media
> software written in C++ QT (like VLC). But on the other hand I've  
> heard
> that it's not that easy to make it "double-clicky" multi-platform.  
> Is that
> true?
>
> Another thing that matters for me is ease of integration with  
> libraries
> like OpenCV.
>
> I will be VERY thankful for any help. I'm SO tired googling the  
> problem
> (it's like weeks now!!)

Cześć trzewiczek,
I'm not well qualified to answer your question but since no one else  
has I'll make a stab at it. I'm interested because I'll have to solve  
the same problem in some months time with a suite of wxPython-based  
apps that rely on a lot of libraries.

When you say "cross platform" I assume you mean OS X, Linux and  
Windows. All three of those require a different technique to create a  
double-clickable app, so in a way you have three problems to solve,  
not just one. For instance, py2exe is a popular solution for building  
monolithic application blobs for Windows, while py2app does the same  
for the Mac.

It might be true that PyQt isn't all that easy to cram into a "double- 
clicky" application blob. But I don't know that e.g. wxPython will be  
any easier. Bundling a Python GUI app is non-trivial. I think that's  
exactly why you've been able to spend weeks googling -- there's no  
easy, obvious, this-is-it, canonical solution. Different people use  
different techniques.

So to get back to your original question, although I don't know if one  
GUI toolkit is easier to bundle than another, I suspect that none of  
them are easy. I would pick the GUI toolkit based on what suits your  
technical & licensing needs best and worry about distribution later.

That's one man's opinion. I hope someone else with more practical  
experience in the matter can offer you some advice.

Good luck
Philip








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