Future standard GUI library

[Kevin Walzer]

Hello,

On 5/18/13 10:03 AM, Beinan Li wrote:

> I know this may sound a silly question because no one can see the
> future. But ...
> Do you think tkinter is going to be the standard python built-in gui
> solution as long as python exists?

I don't see any significant clamoring among the Python core developers 
to make a change.

>
> I couldn't help but wonder if wx or PySide receives better py2 and py3
> support, or anything else that prevent
> them from getting into the standard python distributions, whether or not
> this scene could start to shift ...

I am not going to engage in the old UI toolkit flame ware; I will limit 
myself to factual observations and a few opinions about Tkinter without 
placing it against other toolkits.

Python has the PEP process for suggesting changes to the core language 
and libraries. Changing the default UI toolkit would require someone to 
submit a proposal, get it approved, provide the implementation, and 
commit to maintaining the implementation over the long term. You propose 
it, you own it.

Thus far no one has done this. I would think the only person who would 
be in a position to propose wxPython would be Robin Dunn since he is the 
primary copyright holder, and to my knowledge he has never done so. As 
for Pyside, it was not part of the transition of Qt from Nokia to Digia, 
and so it appears to be orphaned. PyQt might be an alternative, but I 
don't think Phil Thompson would ever submit it, as it would likely 
affect his livelihood.

Given these facts, it's safe to say that Tkinter will remain the default 
GUI toolkit in the stdlib for some years to come.

>
> I believe this "which one of tkinter, wx, qt, is the best gui toolkit
> for python" flame war has been going on
> for ages. I love the fact that python ships a built-in gui solution
> which makes shipping a pure-python desktop
> application a viable choice. But tkinter does not appear to be the most
> time-saving way to write a gui app.
> The layout designer support, for one, is next to zero. I tried many
> 3rd-party designers
> and loved PAGE (http://page.sourceforge.net) for a few minutes, then
> came the author's comment:

PAGE strikes me as an odd choice for a Python developer to develop a Tk 
UI. It's a descendent of the old Visual Tcl tool, and is run from Tcl 
and not Python. VTcl was always famous for producing a huge pot of 
spaghetti UI code that couldn't be easily modified outside the tool. I 
have also tried many Tk UI tools including VTcl, SpecTcl, and the 
orphaned tool from ActiveState, and have concluded that writing my own 
code is both simpler and faster. As always, your mileage may vary.

>
> "For release 4.0, I spent about two months working with the “Theme” part
> of Ttk and have had only partial success. I now believe that the “Theme”
> part of Ttk is really a very poor piece of software at all levels -
> concept, implementation, and especially documentation. My guess is if it
> had been well documented it would have been recognized by even the
> author as junk. I find it hard to believe that the people who control
> Tcl/Tk allowed it in the code base. I continue to support ttk because of
> the paned window, notebook and treeview widgets."

The implementation of the ttk widgets is quite complex--that, in turn, 
makes their documentation complex, and the complexity is a drawback. 
It's hard to customize the ttk themes, especially compared to 
customizing standard Tk widgets. I'm one of the core Tk developers, and 
I don't fully understand the themed widgets' internals or how to 
customize them. But it's not fair to say that they are "junk." The 
author of PAGE may think so, but many would disagree. I think the 
widgets work quite well, especially if used in their default mode. It's 
difficult to overstate the improvement in the look and feel of my Tk 
apps on the Mac when I switched to using the themed widgets.

>
> And ttk seems to be a major attraction that keeps people coming back to
> tk for the looks. This worries me very much
> about whether I should start a gui app using python. Because if ttk is
> not a "mature" technology, I'd avoid premature adoption.
> If ttk is out of the question, tkinter will be too. I'd then be forced
> to use a 3rd-party solution like wx or qt, which I really don't want to see.

ttk is a mature technology. The initial specification, code, and docs 
were developed by Joe English nearly a decade ago (see 
http://tktable.sourceforge.net/tile/tile-tcl2004.pdf), and they had been 
accepted into Tcl/Tk's core in version 8.5 (released in 2007). The 
earliest work on integrating these widgets into Python began in 2008, 
and they were formally released in 2010.  I would say that ttk is 
mature, stable, and unlikely to undergo radical change in the future.

Guilherme Polo has done superb work in integrating the themed widgets 
into Python--it's the most significant UI advance in Python's stdlib in 
years. You are quite safe in developing against this API, unless your 
taste simply does not run to using the ttk widgets.

Hope this helps,
Kevin

-- 
Kevin Walzer
Code by Kevin/Mobile Code by Kevin
http://www.codebykevin.com
http://www.wtmobilesoftware.com