First impressions of wxPython

wxPython Users
1

I have to confess that I haven't used pyQT. I like pyGTK, and for a while it had been my widget set of choice. Here are how I see the differences:

1. The "native" (non X11) widgets under Macintosh OS X don't look good; wx's widgets look fine on OS X in both native and X11 (pyGTK) modes.
2. I've had a really hard time getting a pyGTK package ported to Win32. Like, "put your fist through your monitor" hard. wx seems to work effortlessly on win32
3. In moving from 1.x to 2.0, the gtk widgets changed their naming conventions, which means that I now have to support two different naming conventions in one of my pyGTK programs. In contrast, when wx changed to the wx namespace, the changes were made in a backwards compatible manner.
4. Open GL is frustrating under GTK. The gtk.glarea widget, which I started using, has now been abandoned in favor of the gtk.glext widget, which means that I have to port more code.
5. wxGlade outputs Python code directly, Glade doesn't.

Don't get me wrong, pyGTK has a lot going for it, and for a long time I thought it was going to be *the* player in cross-platform widget sets. But it just doesn't seem like there are very many people who use Macs and Windows and care about GTK, which means that using those widgets on those platforms is risky. I'm famous for betting on the wrong horse in computer standards. I bet on GTK; maybe the wx community should be scared that I think it's cool.

Rick Muller
rmuller@sandia.gov

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On Thursday, March 25, 2004, at 07:57 AM, Bob Klimek wrote:

Rick Muller wrote:

I'm very very impressed with wxPython. I realize that I've said this before, but I've used almost every Python GUI, and have been pretty frustrated with all of them. wxPython rules.

Rick,

I agree that wxPython is very nice, but I was wondering how in your opinion it compares with pyGTK and pyQT?

2

That's okay, I'm "famous" for picking the right horse way ahead of the masses, so we balance each other out. <wink>

The idea of writing single platform apps is so 1980s. Of the three main desktop platforms, Windows is clearly still the most important, followed by Mac OS X, and then Linux (GTK and Qt). Linux may catch Mac OS X in popularity over the next few years, but I doubt it. The important thing is that wxPython (wxWidgets) works extremely well on Windows, is good on Linux/GTK and is getting better on Mac OS X with each release. If we had a Visual Studio quality IDE/GUI builder we would be dangerous.

ka

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On Mar 25, 2004, at 10:11 AM, Rick Muller wrote:

Don't get me wrong, pyGTK has a lot going for it, and for a long time I thought it was going to be *the* player in cross-platform widget sets. But it just doesn't seem like there are very many people who use Macs and Windows and care about GTK, which means that using those widgets on those platforms is risky. I'm famous for betting on the wrong horse in computer standards. I bet on GTK; maybe the wx community should be scared that I think it's cool.