[Pythonmac-SIG] Workaround for Boa crashes on OS X

[Kevin Walzer]

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<snip>
I now have something like twenty hours invested in this process  without
even having made it through the opening tutorial. In fact my  last
several hours of effort have actually moved me backwards because  I used
to be able to at least run one of the template projects with  my
files-not-bundle install of Boa Constructor. Now the bundle won't  run a
project, and the previous Boa install won't run.

I apologize for grousing, but surely everyone doesn't go through this
much difficulty? I like the idea of Python and wxWidgets, but with  the
progress I'm making I'm tempted to move on. I know I'm setting  myself
up for smart retorts, but I'm being honest -- so far the  install
experience has been a disaster. If Python (and specifically  wxPython)
are to grow, people have to be able to at least get through  the install
relatively un-bloodied.
</snip>

Geoff,

I sympathize with your frustration. After spending a little more time
troubleshooting this, I've discovered some things:

1. The crashes appear to be limited to my app bundle. Not sure why. I
ran Boa from the command line and ran a test application fine from
within Boa.

2. The workaround, if you're using my app bundle, is to create the code
in Boa, then test it from the Terminal. "pythonw2.4 /path/to/fooapp.py"
is the correct command, because that will run the app from Python 2.4.1.

3. If you would prefer to run the app from inside Boa, then launch Boa
from the command line. The correct way to do this is "pythonw2.4
/path/to/boa.py." I successfully ran the sample app inside Boa this way.

4. I'm not sure what's wrong with your previous Boa install. Try using
the "pythonw2.4 /path/to/boa.py" approach.

I guess it boils down to whether you want to double-click the shiny icon
to launch Boa and then test the apps from the command-line (my
preference) or run Boa from the command-line and test/debug from within
Boa.

This is actually a less serious bug than some of the other bugs with my
Python packages, which tend to crash randomly, especially when saving
files.

Please test these workarounds. If you get good results, I'll post
documentation to my website about it.

I'm copying this to the Boa Constructor list. Riaan, any idea what might
cause Boa to crash when running code when it's wrapped up in an app
bundle (similar to py2exe) and not crash when it's run from the
command-line?

- --
Cheers,

Kevin Walzer, PhD
WordTech Software--Open Source Applications and Packages for OS X
http://www.wordtech-software.com
http://www.kevin-walzer.com
http://www.smallbizmac.com.
mailto:sw at wordtech-software.com
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