up with PyGUI!

[Zooko O'Whielacronx]

I'm a fan of Greg Ewing's PyGUI [1]. I used it to code a simple game
for my son [2], and enjoyed it. Programming with wxPython feels like
programming with a C++ tool that has been wrapped in Python.
Programming with PyGUI feels like programming with a real Python tool.

If you're developing a commercial application in Python, wxPython is
currently the only option that offers native widgets on w32. It would
be a boost for Python if PyGUI got a native w32 backend.

Therefore, I offer the following suggestions:

Python programmers: use PyGUI! It's nice. Contribute bug reports and
so forth.

Python developers: Is it too early to include PyGUI in the standard
library? It seems stable to me.

PSF: If anyone applies for a grant [3] to put a proper w32 backend into
PyGUI, please give them money. I would offer to do that job myself,
but (a) I'm not w32 expert and (b) I'm busy trying to make one of those
aforementioned commercial apps.

Thanks,

Zooko, Journeyman Hacker

[1] http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/~greg/python_gui/
[2] http://zooko.com/log-2004.html#d2004-06-23
[3] http://python.org/psf/call-2004.html

 

[Jorge Godoy]

If you're developing a commercial application in Python, wxPython is
currently the only option that offers native widgets on w32. It would
be a boost for Python if PyGUI got a native w32 backend.

Indeed... But first, I'm curious about how it looks. I don't
understand why people make GUI projects without any screenshot available
on their own website. How can we see how it looks without downloading,
it?


BTW, I got really interested on the tool used to draw the diagrams on
this page:
http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/~greg/python_gui/version/Doc/ownership.html



Be seeing you,

 

[pitkali]

Indeed... But first, I'm curious about how it looks. I don't
understand why people make GUI projects without any screenshot available
on their own website. How can we see how it looks without downloading,
it?

It says explicitly what toolkits are used. Don't you know how gtk2 looks
like?

Regards,

 

[Phil Frost]

I don't know exactly what was used, but I have used dia to make such
things before.

 

[Jorge Godoy]

It says explicitly what toolkits are used. Don't you know how gtk2 looks
like?

Yes, I do, but I don't know how it is supposed to look like from this
toolit perspective... If I wanted everything exactly like GTK2, I'd
probably use it.

 

[Skip Montanaro]

Jorge> Indeed... But first, I'm curious about how it looks. I don't
Jorge> understand why people make GUI projects without any screenshot
Jorge> available on their own website. How can we see how it looks
Jorge> without downloading, it?

On Unix and Windows it looks like any GTK app. On MacOSX I presume (haven't
tried it there yet) it looks like any other Mac app.

Skip

 

[Skip Montanaro]

Jorge> Yes, I do, but I don't know how it is supposed to look like from
Jorge> this toolit perspective... If I wanted everything exactly like
Jorge> GTK2, I'd probably use it.

That's not what PyGUI is about. It's about a better, standard API for
creating GUI apps.

Skip

 

[Alex Martelli]

Yes, I do, but I don't know how it is supposed to look like from this
toolit perspective... If I wanted everything exactly like GTK2, I'd
probably use it.

....and then it would look the same on a Mac, instead of a nice Aqua
lool, right...?

It seems to me that the point of PyGUI is ease of programming, rather
than look-and-feel, which are supposed to be native on each platform
(except no native win32 is supported yet, as far as I understand).


Alex

 

[Hans Nowak]

I'm a fan of Greg Ewing's PyGUI [1]. I used it to code a simple game
for my son [2], and enjoyed it. Programming with wxPython feels like
programming with a C++ tool that has been wrapped in Python.

This problem is addressed by Wax:

http://zephyrfalcon.org/labs/dope_on_wax.html
http://zephyrfalcon.org/labs/wax_primer.html
http://zephyrfalcon.org/moin.cgi/Wax
http://zephyrfalcon.org/labs/wax_file_explorer.html

(Sorry, no real homepage is available yet for Wax.)

 

[Jorge Godoy]

...and then it would look the same on a Mac, instead of a nice Aqua
lool, right...?

It seems to me that the point of PyGUI is ease of programming, rather
than look-and-feel, which are supposed to be native on each platform
(except no native win32 is supported yet, as far as I understand).

This was the point when I asked for screenshots. ;-)

I was just answering to the "you know how GTK2 looks like" question.

Even with a nice description and with the used toolkits described, I see
no reason to not include a screenshot or at least an hiperlink to some
screenshots.

It is weird see a GUI project with no GUI screen in its description.

 

[Jorge Godoy]

Jorge> Indeed... But first, I'm curious about how it looks. I don't
Jorge> understand why people make GUI projects without any screenshot
Jorge> available on their own website. How can we see how it looks
Jorge> without downloading, it?

On Unix and Windows it looks like any GTK app. On MacOSX I presume (haven't
tried it there yet) it looks like any other Mac app.

This is why I think screenshots are important: you wouldn't presume
nothing you would see if they do look like other Mac apps or not. That
was the point I raised on my first message.

And it accepts either GTK1 and GTK2? (I don't remember the description
right now... I'll look up in a while.) Does it accept GTK on Windows?
Or it doesn't run in Windows at all for now?

 

[Greg Ewing]

Indeed... But first, I'm curious about how it looks. I don't
understand why people make GUI projects without any screenshot available
on their own website. How can we see how it looks without downloading,
it?

How it looks isn't the point of PyGUI. The point is what
the API is like, and you can see that from reading the
online docs.

There wouldn't be much to see in the screenshots anyway.
On a Mac it looks like anything else does on a Mac, and
on Linux or Windows it (currently) looks like anything
else that uses Gtk.

> BTW, I got really interested on the tool used to draw the diagrams on
> this page:
> http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/~greg/python_gui/
> version/Doc/ownership.html

As far as I can remember, I drew them with Appleworks 6,
printed them to PDF files, opened them with Preview and
then saved them as jpegs. (Photoshop might also have been
involved in there somewhere, I don't recall now.)

 

[Greg Ewing]

And it accepts either GTK1 and GTK2?

Only Gtk2.

Does it accept GTK on Windows?

Yes, as far as I know. I haven't tested it myself,
but I don't know of any reason it shouldn't work.

 

[Michel Claveau - abstraction méta-galactique non t]

Hi !

I am sorry also, because wax is fun.


@-salutations

 

[Harald Massa]

Zooko

Python programmers: use PyGUI! It's nice. Contribute bug reports and
so forth.

as I understand from the website, it looks quite similiar to "anygui"

which was a very nice idea, that also ... kept being a nice idea.

I suspect that Frameworks have to be in active use AND development for at
least 4 years before considering them for the standard lib is of any use
for anybody.

Harald

 

[Fritz Bosch]

There wouldn't be much to see in the screenshots anyway.
On a Mac it looks like anything else does on a Mac, and
on Linux or Windows it (currently) looks like anything
else that uses Gtk.

Being built with PyGUI using Gtk using Gimp, does my
application become subject to the GPL?

Fritz

 

[Jorge Godoy]

How it looks isn't the point of PyGUI. The point is what
the API is like, and you can see that from reading the
online docs.

I liked the API. This is what led me to question how it looks. When
I'm developing something that is going to be "visual" to my clients, I'm
interested on what I'm delivering them and how hard it is to achieve
that (how much code, how to tie things together, etc.). But if the
appearance is not good, it is better to choose another toolkit that
might not have an API as good the the other one or to write something
curses based... Appearance sells a lot, specially to Windows users.
Quality and clearity of code is important to us, developers, but if you
write ugly screens with beautiful code your product won't sell.

There wouldn't be much to see in the screenshots anyway.
On a Mac it looks like anything else does on a Mac, and
on Linux or Windows it (currently) looks like anything
else that uses Gtk.

I'm not familiar with the looks on Macs... But I remember something of
it, from the last visit to a store that has some of these here
(I remember specially the design of the computers, the look of the
applications seemed very interesting, but KDE is approaching it very
fast, IMHO). I really would like a lot if it was possible to write
non-GPL code with Qt (not that I'm against GPL software, but some
clients already give me problem with their software being written on
Python, imagine if I had to break too habits at once: closed
software with closed tools...).

On the other hand, GTK 2 is much better than GTK 1. They made a really
nice job. I use it with wxPython and the results are very good. But
then, I'm not a designer... I may just compare with other languages and
other toolkit results.

As far as I can remember, I drew them with Appleworks 6,
printed them to PDF files, opened them with Preview and
then saved them as jpegs. (Photoshop might also have been
involved in there somewhere, I don't recall now.)

Too bad these aren't tools available on Linux or FreeBSD... I really
liked the way they look


Thanks for your attention and sorry for being such a PITA insisting on
the screenshots on your website. I only do that because I liked the API
;-)


Be seeing you,

 

[Alex Martelli]

I'm not familiar with the looks on Macs... But I remember something of
it, from the last visit to a store that has some of these here
(I remember specially the design of the computers, the look of the
applications seemed very interesting, but KDE is approaching it very
fast, IMHO).

IMNSHO, nope -- I'm quite a fan of KDE, but I discovered Macs 9 months
ago and immediately fell in love with MacOSX's "Aqua" user interface
look and feel. These days I use a Mac for everything I can possibly use
one for, even though I mostly program for Linux (and a little Windows).

I really would like a lot if it was possible to write
non-GPL code with Qt (not that I'm against GPL software, but some

It's perfectly possible: Trolltech, the authors of Qt, will be extremely
happy to sell you a commercial license of Qt so you can develop and sell
your code as closed-source or whatever.

Too bad these aren't tools available on Linux or FreeBSD... I really
liked the way they look

Me too (well, not Photoshop, actually -- if I had to process images I
think I'd use GIMP instead), so I use them on my Mac iBook 12" laptop
(whose operating system's guts aren't all that far from FreeBSD --
there's some Mach microkernel involved, but it's very unlikely that
could possibly be a problem -- those guts are all opensource, too, under
the name of 'Darwin').


Alex

 

[Thomas Guettler]

Am Wed, 15 Sep 2004 05:15:31 -0700 schrieb Fritz Bosch:

Being built with PyGUI using Gtk using Gimp, does my
application become subject to the GPL?

Hi,

Gtk does not use Gimp. Gimp uses Gtk.
And Gtk is AFAIK LGPL. You can use
Gtk and pyGTK in your commercial application.

Regards,
Thomas

 

[Jorge Godoy]

It's perfectly possible: Trolltech, the authors of Qt, will be extremely
happy to sell you a commercial license of Qt so you can develop and sell
your code as closed-source or whatever.

Then I'd have to buy something like PyQT, and then I'd have to buy
something like ...

I like the widgets, and the visual, but I can't afford buying a whole
toolchain for using it. So, I use the tools that are free, that allow
the commercial use, and when it is not possible, I let the client choose
paying for something commercial that he will keep after the project
delivery (after all, he paid for that) or writing free software (free
software was their choice 75% of the time, this is another reason I
wouldn't invest on buying a license of Qt for commercial software...).

Me too (well, not Photoshop, actually -- if I had to process images I
think I'd use GIMP instead), so I use them on my Mac iBook 12" laptop
(whose operating system's guts aren't all that far from FreeBSD --
there's some Mach microkernel involved, but it's very unlikely that
could possibly be a problem -- those guts are all opensource, too, under
the name of 'Darwin').

Indeed. Macs are cool, but expensive. Our salaries here in .br are not
like your in the US or Europe...