newbie - needing direction

[bobueland]

I'm a newbie, just got through van Rossum's tutorial and I would like
to try a small project of my own. Here's the description of my project.

When the program starts a light blue semi-transparent area, size 128 by
102, is placed in the middle of the screen. The user can move this
area with arrow the keys. When the user hits the Enter key, a magnified
picture of the chosen area is shown on the screen (10 times
magnification on a 1280 by 1024 monitor). When the user hits the Enter
key the program exits leaving the screen as it was before the program
started.

Could someone direct me what libraries and modules I should study in
order to accomplish this.

Thanks Bob

 

[bobueland]

I should maybe mention that I want to this on a win XP computer

Bob

 

[Giovanni Bajo]

I'm a newbie, just got through van Rossum's tutorial and I would like
to try a small project of my own. Here's the description of my project.

When the program starts a light blue semi-transparent area, size 128 by
102, is placed in the middle of the screen. The user can move this
area with arrow the keys. When the user hits the Enter key, a magnified
picture of the chosen area is shown on the screen (10 times
magnification on a 1280 by 1024 monitor). When the user hits the Enter
key the program exits leaving the screen as it was before the program
started.

Could someone direct me what libraries and modules I should study in
order to accomplish this.

I'd try something easier (with less interaction with Windows). Pygame should
provide everything you need for this kind of applications:
http://www.pygame.org/

Then you can use pywin32 (http://sourceforge.net/projects/pywin32) to bind
to the Windows API and accomplish what you need.

 

[bobueland]

Thanks for the advice,
The reason for the choice of my particular test project is that it is
in the direction that I want to go in so choosing some other won't do.
I've looked briefly at PyGame but this means I have to learn a lot
besides what I want to do.

I thought that maybe my project could be accomplishied using Tkinter
(or possibly wxPython) and PIL. Am I on the wrong track, or should I
invest my time into PyGame even if I don't plan to make games?

Bob

 

[Scott David Daniels]

Thanks for the advice,
The reason for the choice of my particular test project is that it is
in the direction that I want to go in so choosing some other won't do.
I've looked briefly at PyGame but this means I have to learn a lot
besides what I want to do.

I thought that maybe my project could be accomplishied using Tkinter
(or possibly wxPython) and PIL. Am I on the wrong track, or should I
invest my time into PyGame even if I don't plan to make games?

Bob

What you do not understand is that your project requires you to read the
screen under your "lens" and track the "position" on the screen. Those
things are all aspects of the OS and display system, not the language.
So, you'll have to figure out a lot about your system while you are
still unsure of the language itself. That is why we are saying this is
too tough a first project. Reduce your problem: make a movable circle
on a canvas. Next put a background picture under the circle of the
canvas. Then try to your magnification trick on the background. Only
after you can do all of that should you try to get onto the desktop.

Don't be so concerned about "having to learn too much" -- that learning
is the whole point of initial projects. You don't know what you need
to know now, so you are not in a position to make a well-informed choice
of what you need to know.