[SciPy-user] SciPy and GUI

[Gary Pajer]

On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 9:30 AM, Dharhas Pothina <
Dharhas.Pothina at twdb.state.tx.us> wrote:

> Gael,
>
> I almost sent a similar question a few days ago about making a GUI app
> so I'll tag along here.
>
> [...]
>
> On one hand, I am already using matplotlib and the timeseries toolkit
> extensively in scripts so I'm familiar with them and know that they can
> make pretty much any type of plot I need. Also matplotlib has a large
> community.
>
> On the other hand, chaco seems to have been designed for this type of
> interactive application and the plots I need for the GUI app are simpler
> and are supported by Chaco.
>
> Do you (or any others) have any comments about the pros and cons of
> each for someone new at this stuff.
>
> thanks,
>
> - dharhas


I had to make this decision some time ago.  I chose chaco, only because I
wanted a unified set of features and approach in a GUI application.

The downside was that I had to learn how to use chaco when I already knew
mpl, and that was at a time when things in Traits and Chaco were changing
rapidly.  Things now appear to have settled down considerably.  The
documentation for Chaco is still not what we would like, but it is much
better.

The place to start is this tutorial:
https://svn.enthought.com/svn/enthought/Chaco/trunk/docs/scipy08_tutorial.pdf
Don't start with the examples that are available in the svn version of
chaco.  Those examples use windowing frameworks other than TraitsUI, and
they are hard for a beginner to follow.

Am I happy with my decision?  Well, I'm not sure what would have happened if
I chose mpl.  My application works perfectly.  But I occasionally have to
ask questions on this list because the documentation is still a work in
progress.  Things are better for me since I was directed to the tutorial
above.  (I *highly* recommend that tutorial.)

I still use mpl if my task is to make a plot from scratch, outside of my lab
application.

-gary
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