Looking for a very specific type of embedded GUI kit

[Sizer]

We make embedded devices that are basically wimpy linux boxes with small
custom display/touchscreen heads on them. They're not running X or any
other windowing system. All development is done with C++ and PEG
(Portable Embedded GUI) driving the display. PEG lets you install your
own hardware driver to talk any custom hardware, which is what we've
done.

Currently we have an upgrade/installer application that boots from CD,
reads an XML manifest, does what it takes to reformat the drive,
partition it, install the correct packages, etc. etc. All the while
displaying on the little screen what it's doing so there's some obvious
progress going on.

Doing this kind of thing in C++ is very painful, so I've suggested that
perhaps the installer could be done in Python - at which point we have
the issue of which non-X graphics toolkit we can use. If this works out,
we'd probably like to replace other C++ tools with Python as well.

So the question is: what non-X gui toolkit can we use that has Python
bindings and will let us use a custom display driver at the lowest level?
Qt/Embedded looks nice, but I don't see anything about Python binding
(though as I write this I've found PyQt). I've also looked at nano-x and
picogui from doing google searches on the newsgroup. Can wxPython run
without X? I don't think so, but could be wrong. Should we just write our
own python wrapper for PEG? I'm still researching, but figured I'd ask
here in case anyone had any relevant experience and could point me
somewhere.

 

[Dan Sommers]

So the question is: what non-X gui toolkit can we use that has Python
bindings and will let us use a custom display driver at the lowest
level? ...

Curses?

There's a HOWTO at <http://www.amk.ca/python/howto/curses/>.

HTH,
Dan

 

[Frithiof Andreas Jensen]

So the question is: what non-X gui toolkit can we use that has Python
bindings and will let us use a custom display driver at the lowest level?

There is a discussion of Embedded X's here:

http://www.linuxdevices.com/files/elec-oct00/anderson/img0.html (metrolink
seem's to be dead).

http://www.microwindows.org/

maybe sourceforge knows more?

 

[Sizer]

Thanks for your suggestions - after digging into SDL it looks pretty darn
easy to add your own primitive devices at the low level (in src/video/), so
that seems like the way to go. Once SDL is working, plenty of kits run on
top of it.