wxPython Conventions

[Jared Russell]

I've recently decided to try my hand at GUI programming with wxPython,
and I've got a couple questions about the general conventions regarding
it.

To mess around with it, I decided to create a small app to check my
Gmail. I want something that will just sit in my system tray checking
for new emails every ten minutes or so. As such, I have no need for an
actual window anywhere. So I'm wondering if I should still use a Frame
or not. From playing around with it, it seems it's unnecessary, but
I'm admittedly unfamiliar with what would be considered proper.

My other question involved the proper location of specific functions.
Take for instance the functions meant for logging in and actually
checking for new email. Would it be better to put them in my App
class, my Frame class (if the answer to the above question is that yes,
I should use a Frame regardless), or in an entirely separate class? To
me, it seems most natural to put them in the App class, but I'm not
sure if it would be better to avoid clutter and stick them somewhere
else. And if I would stick them in some other class, where should I
keep the reference to the instance of that class? In my App or Frame?

Like I said, I'm just beginning my experience with wxPython, so any
help would be appreciated. I've looked through all the demos and
searched the group, but nothing else seems to pertain to my specific
questions.

Jared

 

[akameswaran]

I'm also fairly new to wxPython, but I've done GUI's in a variety of
languages. I'm not sure about putting the systray - haven't had to
do it. But your second question, put it in it's own class. For
desktop apps I almost allways do a limited M/V/C pattern - M/VC - ok so
I mung the view and controller together. Doing that made it easy for
me to replace tKinter with a newer wxGUI, and if a new toolkit comes
out - It'll be easy to move. Since I'm a newbie to wxPython - I've
keep having to change my event handling due to ignorant usage - when
making these mistakes, it's a lot easier to nuke and recreate a widget,
or event path if your data and functions are in separate classes. Now
as for attaching the class, I'm not sure how you've modelled your
software. Performace considerations are also a real factor - if
performance is not a driving factor, and the program is simple enough -
just let each widget have a reference to the objects it talks to.

Ie, I have a package named GMailAccount, which contains a
GMailAccountInformation class. Now when you create the widget for
getting this text, maybe a wx.Panel with a couple of textctrl, assign
the widget a GMailAccountInformation.

When performance starts to matter, probably want to go to some object
caching scheme in a model class, and have the widgets interface with
that - but now we're getting into a full M/V/C - and I haven't had to
do that yet in my playing with wx.

Hope this helps.

 

[Magnus Lycka]

My other question involved the proper location of specific functions.

Never mix business with plea^h^h^h^hGUI. I'd suggest that you write a
Python module with all your business logic that you can test from the
interactive interpreter. Roughly like this:
.... print text
....
When you build a GUI, you will pass in some bound
method of one of your widgets that will alert the
user instead of the show function above.

This approach makes your code much more useful. You
can use it in other contexts than a small GUI app,
you can swap GUI when you want that, and you can
easily write unit tests for your logic.

 

[Iain King]

To mess around with it, I decided to create a small app to check my
Gmail. I want something that will just sit in my system tray checking
for new emails every ten minutes or so.

How do you gain access to the system tray?

Iain

 

[Johan Lindberg]

Iain King skrev:

How do you gain access to the system tray?

Use wx.TaskBarIcon.
See http://wiki.wxpython.org/index.cgi/FlashingTaskbarIcon for
snippets.

/Johan

 

[Jared Russell]

Thanks for all the replies. I'm admittedly new to GUI programming, so
I'm making sure to read up on the MVC pattern and related things like
the observer pattern. I appreciate the help.

Jared