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6158f936 1<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1" ?>
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2<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
3<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
4<head>
6158f936 5<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
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6<meta name="generator" content="Docutils 0.3.1: http://docutils.sourceforge.net/" />
7<title>wxPython 2.5 Migration Guide</title>
8<link rel="stylesheet" href="default.css" type="text/css" />
9</head>
10<body>
11<div class="document" id="wxpython-2-5-migration-guide">
12<h1 class="title">wxPython 2.5 Migration Guide</h1>
13<p>This document will help explain some of the major changes in wxPython
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142.5 since the 2.4 series and let you know what you need to do to adapt
15your programs to those changes. Be sure to also check in the <a class="reference" href="CHANGES.html">CHANGES</a>
16file like usual to see info about the not so major changes and other
17things that have been added to wxPython.</p>
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18<div class="section" id="wxname-change">
19<h1><a name="wxname-change">wxName Change</a></h1>
20<p>The <strong>wxWindows</strong> project and library is now known as
29bfe46b 21<strong>wxWidgets</strong>. Please see <a class="reference" href="http://www.wxwidgets.org/name.htm">here</a> for more details.</p>
e8a71fa0 22<p>This won't really affect wxPython all that much, other than the fact
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23that the wxwindows.org domain name has changed to wxwidgets.org,
24so mail list, CVS, and etc. addresses have also changed. We're going
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25to try and smooth the transition as much as possible, but I wanted you
26all to be aware of this change if you run into any issues.</p>
27</div>
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28<div class="section" id="module-initialization">
29<h1><a name="module-initialization">Module Initialization</a></h1>
30<p>The import-startup-bootstrap process employed by wxPython was changed
fc33e5e1 31such that wxWidgets and the underlying gui toolkit are <strong>not</strong>
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32initialized until the wx.App object is created (but before wx.App.OnInit
33is called.) This was required because of some changes that were made
34to the C++ wxApp class.</p>
35<p>There are both benefits and potential problems with this change. The
36benefits are that you can import wxPython without requiring access to
37a GUI (for checking version numbers, etc.) and that in a
38multi-threaded environment the thread that creates the app object will
39now be the GUI thread instead of the one that imports wxPython. Some
40potential problems are that the C++ side of the &quot;stock-objects&quot;
41(wx.BLUE_PEN, wx.TheColourDatabase, etc.) are not initialized until
42the wx.App object is created, so you should not use them until after
6158f936 43you have created your wx.App object. If you do then an exception will
e8a71fa0 44be raised telling you that the C++ object has not been initialized
6158f936 45yet.</p>
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46<p>Also, you will probably not be able to do any kind of GUI or bitmap
47operation unless you first have created an app object, (even on
48Windows where most anything was possible before.)</p>
64316568 49<p><strong>[Changed in 2.5.2.x]</strong> All the Window and GDI (pen, bitmap, etc.)
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50class constructors and also many toplevel functions and static methods
51will now check that a wx.App object has already been created and will
52raise a wx.PyNoAppError exception if not.</p>
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53</div>
54<div class="section" id="swig-1-3">
55<h1><a name="swig-1-3">SWIG 1.3</a></h1>
56<p>wxPython is now using SWIG 1.3.x from CVS (with several of my own
57customizations added that I hope to get folded back into the main SWIG
58distribution.) This has some far reaching ramifications:</p>
59<blockquote>
60<p>All classes derive from object and so all are now &quot;new-style
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61classes.&quot; This also allows you to use mixin classes that are
62new-style and to use properties, staticmethod, etc.</p>
d14a1e28 63<p>Public data members of the C++ classes are wrapped as Python
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64properties using property() instead of using
65__getattr__/__setattr__ hacks like before. Normally you shouldn't
66notice any difference, but if you were previously doing something
67with __getattr__/__setattr__ in derived classes then you may have
68to adjust things.</p>
69<p>Static C++ methods are wrapped using the staticmethod() feature of
70Python and so are accessible as ClassName.MethodName as expected.
71They are still also available as top level functions named like
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72ClassName_MethodName as before.</p>
73<p>The relationship between the wxFoo and wxFooPtr classes have
74changed for the better. Specifically, all instances that you see
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75will be wx.Foo even if they are created internally using wx.FooPtr,
76because wx.FooPtr.__init__ will change the instance's __class__ as
d14a1e28 77part of the initialization. If you have any code that checks
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78class type using something like isinstance(obj, wx.FooPtr) you will
79need to change it to isinstance(obj, wx.Foo).</p>
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80</blockquote>
81</div>
82<div class="section" id="binding-events">
83<h1><a name="binding-events">Binding Events</a></h1>
84<p>All of the EVT_* functions are now instances of the wx.PyEventBinder
85class. They have a __call__ method so they can still be used as
86functions like before, but making them instances adds some
29bfe46b 87flexibility that I expect to take advantave of in the future.</p>
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88<p>wx.EvtHandler (the base class for wx.Window) now has a Bind method that
89makes binding events to windows a little easier. Here is its
90definition and docstring:</p>
91<pre class="literal-block">
92def Bind(self, event, handler, source=None, id=wxID_ANY, id2=wxID_ANY):
93 &quot;&quot;&quot;
94 Bind an event to an event handler.
95
96 event One of the EVT_* objects that specifies the
97 type of event to bind.
98
99 handler A callable object to be invoked when the event
100 is delivered to self. Pass None to disconnect an
101 event handler.
102
103 source Sometimes the event originates from a different window
104 than self, but you still want to catch it in self. (For
105 example, a button event delivered to a frame.) By
106 passing the source of the event, the event handling
107 system is able to differentiate between the same event
108 type from different controls.
109
110 id,id2 Used for menu IDs or for event types that require a
111 range of IDs
112
113 &quot;&quot;&quot;
114</pre>
115<p>Some examples of its use:</p>
116<pre class="literal-block">
117self.Bind(wx.EVT_SIZE, self.OnSize)
118self.Bind(wx.EVT_BUTTON, self.OnButtonClick, theButton)
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119self.Bind(wx.EVT_MENU, self.OnExit, id=wx.ID_EXIT)
120</pre>
121<p>The wx.Menu methods that add items to a wx.Menu have been modified
122such that they return a reference to the wx.MenuItem that was created.
123Additionally menu items and toolbar items have been modified to
124automatically generate a new ID if -1 is given, similar to using -1
125with window classess. This means that you can create menu or toolbar
126items and event bindings without having to predefine a unique menu ID,
127although you still can use IDs just like before if you want. For
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128example, these are all equivallent other than their specific ID
129values:</p>
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130<pre class="literal-block">
1311.
132 item = menu.Append(-1, &quot;E&amp;xit&quot;, &quot;Terminate the App&quot;)
133 self.Bind(wx.EVT_MENU, self.OnExit, item)
134
1352.
136 item = menu.Append(wx.ID_EXIT, &quot;E&amp;xit&quot;, &quot;Terminate the App&quot;)
137 self.Bind(wx.EVT_MENU, self.OnExit, item)
138
1393.
140 menu.Append(wx.ID_EXIT, &quot;E&amp;xit&quot;, &quot;Terminate the App&quot;)
141 self.Bind(wx.EVT_MENU, self.OnExit, id=wx.ID_EXIT)
d14a1e28 142</pre>
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143<p>If you create your own custom event types and EVT_* functions, and you
144want to be able to use them with the Bind method above then you should
40efbdda 145change your EVT_* to be an instance of wx.PyEventBinder instead of a
29bfe46b 146function. For example, if you used to have something like this:</p>
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147<pre class="literal-block">
148myCustomEventType = wxNewEventType()
149def EVT_MY_CUSTOM_EVENT(win, id, func):
150 win.Connect(id, -1, myCustomEventType, func)
151</pre>
152<p>Change it like so:</p>
153<pre class="literal-block">
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154myCustomEventType = wx.NewEventType()
155EVT_MY_CUSTOM_EVENT = wx.PyEventBinder(myCustomEventType, 1)
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156</pre>
157<p>The second parameter is an integer in [0, 1, 2] that specifies the
158number of IDs that are needed to be passed to Connect.</p>
64316568 159<p><strong>[Changed in 2.5.2.x]</strong> There is also an Unbind method added to
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160wx.EvtHandler that can be used to disconenct event handlers. It looks
161like this:</p>
162<pre class="literal-block">
163def Unbind(self, event, source=None, id=wx.ID_ANY, id2=wx.ID_ANY):
164 &quot;&quot;&quot;
165 Disconencts the event handler binding for event from self.
166 Returns True if successful.
167 &quot;&quot;&quot;
168</pre>
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169</div>
170<div class="section" id="the-wx-namespace">
171<h1><a name="the-wx-namespace">The wx Namespace</a></h1>
172<p>The second phase of the wx Namespace Transition has begun. That means
173that the real names of the classes and other symbols do not have the
174'wx' prefix and the modules are located in a Python package named
175wx. There is still a Python package named wxPython with modules
176that have the names with the wx prefix for backwards compatibility.
177Instead of dynamically changing the names at module load time like in
1782.4, the compatibility modules are generated at build time and contain
179assignment statements like this:</p>
180<pre class="literal-block">
40efbdda 181wxWindow = wx._core.Window
d14a1e28 182</pre>
40efbdda 183<p>Don't let the &quot;_core&quot; in the name bother you. That and some other
d14a1e28 184modules are implementation details, and everything that was in the
6158f936 185wxPython.wx module before will still be in the wx package namespace
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186after this change. So from your code you would use it as wx.Window or
187wxWindow if you import from the wxPython.wx module.</p>
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188<p>A few notes about how all of this was accomplished might be
189interesting... SWIG is now run twice for each module that it is
190generating code for. The first time it outputs an XML representaion
191of the parse tree, which can be up to 20MB and 300K lines in size!
192That XML is then run through a little Python script that creates a
193file full of SWIG %rename directives that take the wx off of the
194names, and also generates the Python compatibility file described
195above that puts the wx back on the names. SWIG is then run a second
196time to generate the C++ code to implement the extension module, and
197uses the %rename directives that were generated in the first step.</p>
198<p>Not every name is handled correctly (but the bulk of them are) and so
199some work has to be done by hand, especially for the reverse-renamers.
200So expect a few flaws here and there until everything gets sorted out.</p>
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201<p>In summary, the wx package and names without the &quot;wx&quot; prefix are now
202the official form of the wxPython classes. For example:</p>
203<pre class="literal-block">
204import wx
205
206class MyFrame(wx.Frame):
207 def __init__(self, parent, title):
208 wx.Frame.__init__(self, parent, -1, title)
209 p = wx.Panel(self, -1)
210 b = wx.Button(p, -1, &quot;Do It&quot;, (10,10))
211 self.Bind(wx.EVT_BUTTON, self.JustDoIt, b)
212
213 def JustDoIt(self, evt):
214 print &quot;It's done!&quot;
215
216app = wx.PySimpleApp()
217f = MyFrame(None, &quot;What's up?&quot;)
218f.Show()
219app.MainLoop()
220</pre>
221<p>You shouldn't need to migrate all your modules over to use the new
222package and names right away as there are modules in place that try to
223provide as much backwards compatibility of the names as possible. If
82a074ce 224you rewrote the above sample using &quot;from wxPython.wx import * &quot;, the
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225old wxNames, and the old style of event binding it will still work
226just fine.</p>
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227</div>
228<div class="section" id="new-wx-dc-methods">
229<h1><a name="new-wx-dc-methods">New wx.DC Methods</a></h1>
64316568 230<p><strong>[Changed in 2.5.2.x]</strong> In wxPython 2.5.1.5 there was a new
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231implementation of the wx.DC Draw and other methods that broke
232backwards compatibility in the name of consistency. That change has
233been reverted and the wx.DC Draw methods with 2.4 compatible
234signatures have been restored. In addition a new set of methods have
235been added that take wx.Point and/or wx.Size parameters instead of
236separate integer parameters. The Draw and etc. methods now available
237in the wx.DC class are:</p>
d14a1e28 238<pre class="literal-block">
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239FloodFill(self, x, y, colour, style = wx.FLOOD_SURFACE)
240FoodFillPoint(self, pt, colour, style = wx.FLOOD_SURFACE)
d14a1e28 241
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242GetPixel(self, x,y)
243GetPixelPoint(self, pt)
d14a1e28 244
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245DrawLine(self, x1, y1, x2, y2)
246DrawLinePoint(self, pt1, pt2)
d14a1e28 247
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248CrossHair(self, x, y)
249CrossHairPoint(self, pt)
d14a1e28 250
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251DrawArc(self, x1, y1, x2, y2, xc, yc)
252DrawArcPoint(self, pt1, pt2, centre)
d14a1e28 253
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254DrawCheckMark(self, x, y, width, height)
255DrawCheckMarkRect(self, rect)
d14a1e28 256
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257DrawEllipticArc(self, x, y, w, h, sa, ea)
258DrawEllipticArcPointSize(self, pt, sz, sa, ea)
d14a1e28 259
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260DrawPoint(self, x, y)
261DrawPointPoint(self, pt)
d14a1e28 262
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263DrawRectangle(self, x, y, width, height)
264DrawRectangleRect(self, rect)
265DrawRectanglePointSize(self, pt, sz)
d14a1e28 266
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267DrawRoundedRectangle(self, x, y, width, height, radius)
268DrawRoundedRectangleRect(self, r, radius)
269DrawRoundedRectanglePointSize(self, pt, sz, radius)
d14a1e28 270
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271DrawCircle(self, x, y, radius)
272DrawCirclePoint(self, pt, radius)
d14a1e28 273
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274DrawEllipse(self, x, y, width, height)
275DrawEllipseRect(self, rect)
276DrawEllipsePointSize(self, pt, sz)
d14a1e28 277
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278DrawIcon(self, icon, x, y)
279DrawIconPoint(self, icon, pt)
d14a1e28 280
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281DrawBitmap(self, bmp, x, y, useMask = False)
282DrawBitmapPoint(self, bmp, pt, useMask = False)
d14a1e28 283
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284DrawText(self, text, x, y)
285DrawTextPoint(self, text, pt)
d14a1e28 286
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287DrawRotatedText(self, text, x, y, angle)
288DrawRotatedTextPoint(self, text, pt, angle)
d14a1e28 289
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290bool Blit(self, xdest, ydest, width, height, sourceDC, xsrc, ysrc,
291 rop = wx.COPY, useMask = False, xsrcMask = -1, ysrcMask = -1)
292BlitPointSize(self, destPt, sz, sourceDC, srcPt, rop = wx.COPY,
293 useMask = False, srcPtMask = wxDefaultPosition)
d14a1e28 294
6158f936 295
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296SetClippingRegion(self, x, y, width, height)
297SetClippingRegionPointSize(self, pt, sz)
298SetClippingRegionAsRegion(self, region)
299SetClippingRect(self, rect)
d14a1e28 300</pre>
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301</div>
302<div class="section" id="building-extending-and-embedding-wxpython">
303<h1><a name="building-extending-and-embedding-wxpython">Building, Extending and Embedding wxPython</a></h1>
304<p>wxPython's setup.py script now expects to use existing libraries for
305the contribs (gizmos, stc, xrc, etc.) rather than building local
306copies of them. If you build your own copies of wxPython please be
307aware that you now need to also build the ogl, stc, xrc, and gizmos
29bfe46b 308libraries in addition to the main wx lib.</p>
d14a1e28 309<p>The wxPython.h and other header files are now in
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310.../wxPython/include/wx/wxPython instead of in wxPython/src. You
311should include it via the &quot;wx/wxPython/wxPython.h&quot; path and add
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312.../wxPython/include to your list of include paths. On OSX and
313unix-like systems the wxPython headers are installed to the same place
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314that the wxWidgets headers are installed, so if you are building
315wxPython compatible extensions on those platforms then your include
316path should already be set properly.</p>
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317<p>If you are also using SWIG for your extension then you'll need to
318adapt how the wxPython .i files are imported into your .i files. See
319the wxPython sources for examples. Your modules will need to at least
320<tt class="literal"><span class="pre">%import</span> <span class="pre">core.i</span></tt>, and possibly others if you need the definition of
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321other classes. Since you will need them to build your modules using
322SWIG, the main wxPython .i files are also installed with the wxPython
323headers in an i_files sibdirectory. It should be enough to pass a
324-I/pathname on the command line for SWIG to find the files.</p>
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325<p>The bulk of wxPython's setup.py has been moved to another module,
326wx/build/config.py. This module will be installed as part of wxPython
327so 3rd party modules that wish to use the same setup/configuration
328code can do so simply by importing this module from their own setup.py
329scripts using <tt class="literal"><span class="pre">import</span> <span class="pre">wx.build.config</span></tt>.</p>
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330<p>You no longer need to call wxClassInfo::CleanUpClasses() and
331wxClassInfo::InitializeClasses() in your extensions or when embedding
332wxPython.</p>
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333<p>The usage of wxPyBeginAllowThreads and wxPyEndAllowThreads has changed
334slightly. wxPyBeginAllowThreads now returns a boolean value that must
335be passed to the coresponding wxPyEndAllowThreads function call. This
336is to help do the RightThing when calls to these two functions are
337nested, or if calls to external code in other extension modules that
338are wrapped in the standard Py_(BEGIN|END)_ALLOW_THERADS may result in
339wx event handlers being called (such as during the call to
340os.startfile.)</p>
d14a1e28 341</div>
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342<div class="section" id="two-or-three-phase-create">
343<h1><a name="two-or-three-phase-create">Two (or Three!) Phase Create</a></h1>
344<p>If you use the Precreate/Create method of instantiating a window, (for
345example, to set an extended style flag, or for XRC handlers) then
346there is now a new method named PostCreate to help with transplanting
347the brain of the prewindow instance into the derived window instance.
348For example:</p>
349<pre class="literal-block">
350class MyDialog(wx.Dialog):
351 def __init__(self, parent, ID, title, pos, size, style):
352 pre = wx.PreDialog()
353 pre.SetExtraStyle(wx.DIALOG_EX_CONTEXTHELP)
354 pre.Create(parent, ID, title, pos, size, style)
355 self.PostCreate(pre)
356</pre>
357</div>
358<div class="section" id="sizers">
359<h1><a name="sizers">Sizers</a></h1>
8eda5e35 360<p>The hack allowing the old &quot;option&quot; keyword parameter has been removed.
9ec83f8d 361If you use keyword args with w.xSizer Add, Insert, or Prepend methods
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362then you will need to use the <tt class="literal"><span class="pre">proportion</span></tt> name instead of
363<tt class="literal"><span class="pre">option</span></tt>. (The <tt class="literal"><span class="pre">proportion</span></tt> keyword was also allowed in 2.4.2.4.)</p>
29bfe46b 364<p>When adding a spacer to a sizer you now need to use a wx.Size or a
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3652-integer sequence instead of separate width and height parameters.
366This was optionally allowed in 2.4, but now it is required. This
367allows for more consistency in how you add the various types of items
368to a sizer. The first parameter defines the item (instead of the
369possibily first two, depending on if you are doing a spacer or not,)
370and that item can either be a window, a sizer or a spacer (which can
371be a sequence or a wx.Size.) Removing the option for separate width
372and height parameters greatly simplified the wrapper code.</p>
29bfe46b 373<p>The wx.GridBagSizer class (very similar to the RowColSizer in the
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374library) has been added to C++ and wrapped for wxPython. It can also
375be used from XRC.</p>
376<p>You should not use AddWindow, AddSizer, AddSpacer (and similar for
377Insert, Prepend, and etc.) methods any longer. Just use Add and the
64316568 378wrappers will figure out what to do. <strong>[Changed in 2.5.2.x]</strong>
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379AddWindow, AddSize, AddSpacer and etc. will now issue a
380DeprecationWarning.</p>
64316568 381<p><strong>[Changed in 2.5.2.x]</strong> wx.ADJUST_MINSIZE is now the default
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382behaviour for window items in sizers. This means that the item's
383GetMinSize and/or GetBestSize will be called when calculating layout
384and the return value from that will be used for the minimum size used
385by the sizer. The wx.FIXED_MINSIZE flag was added that will cause the
386sizer to use the old behaviour in that it will <em>not</em> call the window's
387methods to determine the new best size, instead the minsize that the
388window had when added to the sizer (or the size the window was created
389with) will always be used.</p>
390<p>Related to the above, when controls and some other window types are
391created either the size passed to the constructor, or their &quot;best
392size&quot; if an explicit size was not passed in, is set as the window's
393minimal size. For non top-level windows that hasn't meant much in the
394past, but now the sizers are sensitive to the window's minimal size.
395The key point to understand here is that it is no longer the window's
396size it has when added to the sizer that matters, but its minimal
397size. So you might have some issues to iron out if you create a
398control without a size and then set its size to something before
399adding it to the sizer. Since it's minimal size is probably not the
400size you set then the sizer will appear to be misbehaving. The fix is
401to either set the size when calling the window's constructor, or to
402reset the min size by calling SetSizeHints. You can call SetSizeHints
403at anytime to change the minsize of a window, just call the sizer's
404Layout method to redistribute the controls as needed.</p>
6158f936 405</div>
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406<div class="section" id="platforminfo">
407<h1><a name="platforminfo">PlatformInfo</a></h1>
408<p>Added wx.PlatformInfo which is a tuple containing strings that
409describe the platform and build options of wxPython. This lets you
410know more about the build than just the __WXPORT__ value that
411wx.Platform contains, such as if it is a GTK2 build. For example,
412instead of:</p>
413<pre class="literal-block">
414if wx.Platform == &quot;__WXGTK__&quot;:
415 ...
416</pre>
417<p>you should do this:</p>
418<pre class="literal-block">
419if &quot;__WXGTK__&quot; in wx.PlatformInfo:
420 ...
421</pre>
422<p>and you can specifically check for a wxGTK2 build by looking for
423&quot;gtk2&quot; in wx.PlatformInfo. Unicode builds are also detectable this
424way. If there are any other platform/toolkit/build flags that make
425sense to add to this tuple please let me know.</p>
426<p>BTW, wx.Platform will probably be deprecated in the future.</p>
427</div>
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428<div class="section" id="activex">
429<h1><a name="activex">ActiveX</a></h1>
430<p>Lindsay Mathieson's newest <a class="reference" href="http://members.optusnet.com.au/~blackpaw1/wxactivex.html">wxActiveX</a> class has been wrapped into a new
431extension module called wx.activex. It is very generic and dynamic
432and should allow hosting of arbitray ActiveX controls within your
433wxPython apps. So far I've tested it with IE, PDF, and Flash
434controls, (and there are new samples in the demo and also library
435modules supporting these.)</p>
436<p>The new wx.activex module contains a bunch of code, but the most
437important things to look at are ActiveXWindow and ActiveXEvent.
438ActiveXWindow derives from wxWindow and the constructor accepts a
439CLSID for the ActiveX Control that should be created. (There is also
440a CLSID class that can convert from a progID or a CLSID String.) The
441ActiveXWindow class simply adds methods that allow you to query some
442of the TypeInfo exposed by the ActiveX object, and also to get/set
443properties or call methods by name. The Python implementation
444automatically handles converting parameters and return values to/from
445the types expected by the ActiveX code as specified by the TypeInfo,
446(just bool, integers, floating point, strings and None/Empty so far,
447but more can be handled later.)</p>
448<p>That's pretty much all there is to the class, as I mentioned before it
449is very generic and dynamic. Very little is hard-coded and everything
450that is done with the actual ActiveX control is done at runtime and
451referenced by property or method name. Since Python is such a dynamic
452language this is a very good match. I thought for a while about doing
453some Python black-magic and making the specific methods/properties of
454the actual ActiveX control &quot;appear&quot; at runtime, but then decided that
455it would be better and more understandable to do it via subclassing.
456So there is a utility class in wx.activex that given an existing
457ActiveXWindow instance can generate a .py module containing a derived
458class with real methods and properties that do the Right Thing to
459reflect those calls to the real ActiveX control. There is also a
460script/tool module named genaxmodule that given a CLSID or progID and
461a class name, will generate the module for you. There are a few
462examples of the output of this tool in the wx.lib package, see
463iewin.py, pdfwin.py and flashwin.py.</p>
464<p>Currently the genaxmodule tool will tweak some of the names it
465generates, but this can be controled if you would like to do it
466differently by deriving your own class from GernerateAXModule,
467overriding some methods and then using this class from a tool like
468genaxmodule. [TODO: make specifying a new class on genaxmodule's
469command-line possible.] The current default behavior is that any
470event names that start with &quot;On&quot; will have the &quot;On&quot; dropped, property
471names are converted to all lower case, and if any name is a Python
472keyword it will have an underscore appended to it. GernerateAXModule
473does it's best when generating the code in the new module, but it can
474only be as good as the TypeInfo data available from the ActiveX
475control so sometimes some tweaking will be needed. For example, the
476IE web browser control defines the Flags parameter of the Navigate2
477method as required, but MSDN says it is optional.</p>
478<p>It is intended that this new wx.activex module will replace both the
479older version of Lindsay's code available in iewin.IEHtmlWindow, and
480also the wx.lib.activexwraper module. Probably the biggest
481differences you'll ecounter in migrating activexwrapper-based code
482(besides events working better without causing deadlocks) is that
483events are no longer caught by overriding methods in your derived
484class. Instead ActiveXWindow uses the wx event system and you bind
485handlers for the ActiveX events exactly the same way you do for any wx
486event. There is just one extra step needed and that is creating an
487event ID from the ActiveX event name, and if you use the genaxmodule
488tool then this extra step will be handled for you there. For example,
489for the StatusTextChange event in the IE web browser control, this
490code is generated for you:</p>
491<pre class="literal-block">
492wxEVT_StatusTextChange = wx.activex.RegisterActiveXEvent('StatusTextChange')
493EVT_StatusTextChange = wx.PyEventBinder(wxEVT_StatusTextChange, 1)
494</pre>
495<p>and you would use it in your code like this:</p>
496<pre class="literal-block">
497self.Bind(iewin.EVT_StatusTextChange, self.UpdateStatusText, self.ie)
498</pre>
499<p>When the event happens and your event handler function is called the
500event properties from the ActiveX control (if any) are converted to
501attributes of the event object passed to the handler. (Can you say
502'event' any more times in a single sentence? ;-) ) For example the
503StatusTextChange event will also send the text that should be put into
504the status line as an event parameter named &quot;Text&quot; and you can access
505it your handlers as an attribute of the event object like this:</p>
506<pre class="literal-block">
507def UpdateStatusText(self, evt):
508 self.SetStatusText(evt.Text)
509</pre>
510<p>Usually these event object attributes should be considered read-only,
511but some will be defined by the TypeInfo as output parameters. In
512those cases if you modify the event object's attribute then that value
513will be returned to the ActiveX control. For example, to prevent a
514new window from being opened by the IE web browser control you can do
515this in the handler for the iewin.EVT_NewWindow2 event:</p>
516<pre class="literal-block">
517def OnNewWindow2(self, evt):
518 evt.Cancel = True
519</pre>
29bfe46b 520<p>So how do you know what methods, events and properties that an ActiveX
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521control supports? There is a funciton in wx.activex named GetAXInfo
522that returns a printable summary of the TypeInfo from the ActiveX
523instance passed in. You can use this as an example of how to browse
524the TypeInfo provided, and there is also a copy of this function's
525output appended as a comment to the modules produced by the
526genaxmodule tool. Beyond that you'll need to consult the docs
527provided by the makers of the ActiveX control that you are using.</p>
528</div>
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529<div class="section" id="png-images">
530<h1><a name="png-images">PNG Images</a></h1>
531<p>Prior to 2.5 the PNG image handler would convert all alpha channel
532information to a mask when the image was loaded. Pixels that were
533more than halfway transparent would be made fully transparent by the
534mask and the rest would be made fully opaque.</p>
535<p>In 2.5 the image handler has been updated to preserve the alpha
536channel and will now only create a mask when all the pixels in the
537image are either fully transparent or fully opaque. In addition, the
538wx.DC.DrawBitmap and wx.DC.Blit methods are able to correctly blend
539the pixels in the image with partially transparent alpha values.
540(Currently only on MSW and Mac, if anybody knows how to do it for GTK
541then please submit a patch!)</p>
542<p>If you are using a PNG with an alpha channel but you need to have a
543wx.Mask like you automatically got in 2.4 then you can do one of the
544following:</p>
545<blockquote>
546<ul class="simple">
547<li>Edit the image and make all the partially transparent pixels be
548fully transparent.</li>
549<li>Use a different image type.</li>
550<li>Set a mask based on colour after you load the image.</li>
551</ul>
552</blockquote>
553</div>
554<div class="section" id="ogl-is-dead-long-live-ogl">
555<h1><a name="ogl-is-dead-long-live-ogl">OGL is dead! LONG LIVE OGL!</a></h1>
64316568 556<p><strong>[Changed in 2.5.2.x]</strong></p>
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557<p>The wx.ogl module has been deprecated in favor of the new Python port
558