wxpython-dev Digest, Vol 7, Issue 4

Date: Sat, 20 Sep 2008 19:50:11 -0700
From: Robin Dunn <robin@alldunn.com>
Subject: [wxpython-dev] Preview build on the way, here's a spoiler on
  the 'surprise'
To: wxPython-dev@lists.wxwidgets.org
Message-ID: <48D5B663.2040009@alldunn.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

Hi all,

I've got a preview build percolating through the build system as I type
this, so if all goes well there will be a preview available for all of
you to test in a few hours. Watch this list for the announcement.

The reason for this email is that I thought I would give you some
highlights of the main new feature of this release. As you've probably
guessed from my cryptic comments in some wxPython-users messages a week
or two ago this release will provide some glue code to allow you to
smoothly use the pycairo package in wxPython applications. There are
more details in the CHANGE notes and in the library modules, but I
thought that many in this group would be interested in some things that
might not be obvious at first glance.

Cairo is very powerful especially because it can output to svg, pdf, png and context devices. I have been using pycairo now for a while and achieved great results. I am really excited to see this landing in wxPython. I've used pycairo for example to write a custom jog control in pyGTK, so I am curious how easily I can port this to wxPython.

Finally, especially for Chris Barker, we now have a way to directly use
a Python buffer object as the target of drawing operations and the
source of bitmap data for drawing to the screen, with no extra copying
of the pixel data to and from the buffer. See
GraphicsBitmap.CreateFromBuffer in graphics.py.

Besides Chris Baker a lot more people (like me) will be happy with this!

I saw there were deb builds for Hardy. Can they be used from a repository so I can add it to my /etc/apt/sources.list?

Robin, thanks for these two developments. I guess they will wxPython a bigger boost as people can imagine now.

Best regards,
Stani

Stani wrote:

Finally, especially for Chris Barker, we now have a way to directly use a Python buffer object as the target of drawing operations and the source of bitmap data for drawing to the screen, with no extra copying of the pixel data to and from the buffer. See GraphicsBitmap.CreateFromBuffer in graphics.py.

Besides Chris Baker a lot more people (like me) will be happy with this!

Yes, I expect so. I just mentioned Chris because he's been wishing and asking for a way to do this for years now. And wishing so hard that he keeps forgetting that the wx.BitmapFromBuffer factory functions do make a copy of the data. :wink:

I saw there were deb builds for Hardy. Can they be used from a repository so I can add it to my /etc/apt/sources.list?

The final release will, but the previews are not organized in repository format. However you can manually download the debs and install them from the command line with dpkg without confusing apt at all.

···

--
Robin Dunn
Software Craftsman
http://wxPython.org Java give you jitters? Relax with wxPython!