Not wanting to hijack Terry's conversation, but for what it's worth: On 16 November 2010 18:08, Patty <pa...@cruzio.com> wrote:
> If I just can't figure out how to do this with Tkinter and the Python > Imaging Library, is 'wxPython' the additional software I would want to > install and try with? Is its purpose to make GUI event programming easier > (that would mean the defaults provided are difficult, right? So I shouldn't > feel bad about being confused?) If so, can someone explain these additional > software packages out there? I mean are they coming from some third > companies? And why? If the software is free. I'm not understanding the > history or business part of these Python modules and libraries. Isn't there > one organization who is discussing or approving standards for this language? > wxPython is a set of Python wrappers for the wxWidgets GUI component set. wxWidgets in turn is a set of C++ GUI wrapper controls that wraps the native GUI controls (e.g. edit boxes, memo boxes, drop downs, buttons, radio buttons, checkboxes, menu's and so on) on various platforms. Hence it thus provides a common set of classes/components/controls and effectively a common API for writing GUI based applications in a cross platform fashion, e.g. that target multiple platforms (e.g. Mac, Windows, Unix, Linux etc.) So, by using wxPython you can write applications knowing that your app should work pretty much unmodified on any system where wxWidgets is available/installed. wxWidgets as well as wxPython is open source, so the source is freely available and managed/supported by their respective development teams. For more see: http://www.wxwidgets.org/about/ http://www.wxpython.org/what.php You can download and install wxPython for Windows here (make sure to get the one corresponding to the version of Python that you have installed.): http://www.wxpython.org/download.php#stable You should also install the demo application and documentation. The demo application will give you an idea of what you can do and how to do it. As an aside, there are other similar (competing) libraries that one might use, e.g. GTK or QT for example (or for that matter TK), which needless to say also have Python wrappers. Which to use is largely a matter of context and taste, but suffice it to say wx is not a bad choice. It's however quite large, so don't expect it to all sink in overnight. (I certainly am no wx expert, I just know enough to be dangerous ;) ) As for Event driven programming, it takes a little getting used to if you're only used to normal "straight line" programs at this point, GUI programming adds its own set up of detail and complexity on top of the event-driven programming model (not least that it usually demands a relatively solid understanding of OO concepts), so don't feel bad if you're feeling confused. (You might want to read up/google "Event driven programming" and do some research and come back with more questions after you've tried a few things yourself.) That's my £0.01 worth anyway, Walter
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