[Tutor] graphics library for teaching Python

[Mike Barnett]

For PySimpleGUI….
Things like “collision detection” are up to the application.  PySimpleGUI gives you ability to place “objects” at x,y coordinates.  The primitives allow images, circles, lines, rectangles, arcs, and text to be drawn and removed.  If one overlaps another you’re on the hook for determining that.

GUIs
PySimpleGUI rocks for doing custom GUIs.  At last count there were 28 widgets that you can place pretty much anywhere within a window.  These are the basic widgets (buttons, listbox, checkbox, radio button, etc.) as well as advanced Panes and Button-Menus.  It’s excellent for teaching GUIs and how to layout a GUI because all of the widgets are available for the developer, not a subset.

You can run sync and async event loops so doing things like polling hardware devices is easy.  No callbacks to worry about.
Here’s a description of the architecture
https://pysimplegui.readthedocs.io/architecture/

Determining which button was clicked is as easy as a comparison:
if button == ‘Download’:
   do_download_stuff()

Animation is a super easy to do as all you’re doing is showing images in a loop.

Here’s a program that does a simple graph of a math function that allows you to change the variables using a couple of sliders.  It demonstrates the “graphing” capability.
https://gist.github.com/MikeTheWatchGuy/8453e82fc65e24060775443e843ab80b


One big drawback for tkinter / PySimpleGUI is the inability to have an image as the background.  You can have an image for the background of a canvas, but of the entire window.  For that you’ll need to use PySimpleGUIQt.

Anyway, it’s worth a look to see if it fits some of your needs.


@mike<mailto:mike_barnett at hotmail.com>

From: Michael Mossey <michaelmossey at gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, December 21, 2018 1:40 PM
To: Mike Barnett <mike_barnett at hotmail.com>
Cc: tutor at python.org
Subject: Re: [Tutor] graphics library for teaching Python



On Fri, Dec 21, 2018 at 9:15 AM Mike Barnett <mike_barnett at hotmail.com<mailto:mike_barnett at hotmail.com>> wrote:
>There are two sub-topics I'm interested in - (1) graphics, as in drawing interesting pictures or art, or using diagrams for data visualization. (2) Simple games, with the use of sprites.

Can you post some images of similar programs / graphics you are wanting to create?  It would be extremely helpful to see concrete "targets".  Then I can better inform you if PySimpleGUI is capable of doing what you seek.

I think PySimpleGUI might be a great fit.

I'm getting my ideas from projects way in the past, so I can't easily find screenshots. But what I'm looking for is pretty easy to describe.

for graphics: "Capabilities similar to JavaScript canvas plus collision detection."

In other words, basic text filling/stroking, basic shape and line and Bezier curve filling/stroking, and then collision detection to make simple games easier.

for GUIs: "Basic dialogs, buttons, labels, checkboxes, and integrated canvas."

My students range a lot in age and ability. Youngest is 9th grade, ranging upward to professionals who are looking to learn programming as a new skill to use in the workplace or put on their resume.



I've recently been writing more games using PySimpleGUI to see what's missing in the SDK, to determine new features that will help developers.

For data visualization, there's Matplotlib and Pyplot, both integrate with PySimpleGUI very well.  Someone mentioned Turtle, it too integrates well by using a tkinter canvas.

By data visualization, I don't mean necessarily plotting. Matplotlib might be an awkward fit.

I'm thinking of visualizing math processes, algorithms, and so forth. Say, we animate a cubic curve changing shape while the coefficients change. Or we animate the inner workings of a tic tac toe strategy algorithm by having it draw a tic tac toe board with changing colors or shapes to represent positions or calculations in progress. I don't mean something really complicated. Just picture the simplest thing that makes sense.

Thanks for the other links to examples.

Mike