Build/distrib updates

[wxWidgets.git] / wxPython / docs / CHANGES.txt

Recent Changes for wxPython
=====================================================================


2.5.4.1
-------

wx.Sizer Add, Insert, and Prepend functions now return a reference to the
wx.SizerItem that was added to the sizer, and the wx.SizerItem has a
GetRect accessor to give the position of the item on the parent window.

Added wx.Sizer.GetItem method which returns the wx.SizerItem for the given
wx.Window, wx.Sizer or position index.

wxMSW: wx.RadioButtons in the same group no longer have to be
consecutive (there may be intervening controls). Without this fix, an
out-of-sync assert is generated when clicking on a radio button and
then calling GetValue().

Some XRC changes: 
    - Added 'icon' property to wxFrame and wxDialog
    - No longer ignores menu bitmaps on non-MSW platforms
    - Notebook page bitmaps are now supported
    - added system colours and fonts support (based on patch #1038207)

wxMSW: fix for [ 1052989 ] TextCtrl.SetBackgroundColour(wx.NullColour)
bug.

Added wx.PasswordEntryDialog analagous to wx.TextEntryDialog, allows
detecting entering an empty string vs. cancel unlike the
wx.GetPasswordFromUser dialog function.

OGL patch from Shane Holloway:

    Two simple problems found in the new python ogl code.  First is
    the patch for _canvas.py.  Essentially::

        dx = abs(dc.LogicalToDeviceX(x - self._firstDragX))
        dy = abs(dc.LogicalToDeviceY(y - self._firstDragY))

    was incorrect because (x,y) and (self._firstDragX,
    self._firstDragY) are both already in Logical coordinates.
    Therefore the difference between the two is also in logical
    coordinates, and the conversion call is an error.  This bug
    surfaces when you have OGL on a scrollwin, and you are far from
    the origin of the canvas.

    The second change in _composit.py basically removes the assumption
    that the child is in both self._children and self._divisions.
    Causes many problems when it's not.  ;)

Fixed GetSaveData and SetSaveData in wx.lib.multisash to not depend on
the default way that class objectss are converted to strings.

Fixed problem in StyledTextCtrl.Set[HV]ScrollBar that could leave the
internal scrollbar visible.

Added wx.StandardPaths which provides methods for determining standard
system paths for each platform.

wxMSW: The window background is now only erased by default if the
background colour or background mode has been changed.  This better
allows the default system themed behaviour to show through for
uncustomized windows.  Explicit support added for using the correct
theme texture for wx.Notebook pages and their children.

wx.Image: Added support for alpha channels in interpolated and
non-interpolated image rotation.  Added ConvertAlphaToMask helper
method for turning shades of grey into shades of alpha and a colour.

wxGTK2: Reimplemented DoDrawRotatedText() by way of a rotation of an
alpha blended text bitmap.  It would be better if Pango could draw
directly into an wxImage (as FreeType can,) but that is for later...

Added wrappers and a demo for the wx.MediaCtrl class, which can play
various forms of audio/video media using native codecs install on the
system.  So far it is only implemented for Windows and OSX.

wxGTK: Patch applied for Freeze()/Thaw() for wxTextCtrtl.

Added "gravity" for splitter window (patch 1046105). Gravity is a
floating-point factor between 0.0 and 1.0 which controls position of
sash while resizing the wx.SplitterWindow.  The gravity specifies
how much the left/top window will grow while resizing.

wxMSW: wx.Slider's C++ implementation rewritten to be more
maintainable and hopefully less buggy.  The position of the labels has
also been changed in order to better comply with Microsoft's examples
of how to use the control.

wxMSW:  Fix wx.TreeCtrl to end label editing if the control loses
focus (a slightly modified patch 1084592.)

Added wx.EXEC_NODISABLE flag for wx.Execute, which will prevent all
the app's windows being disabled while a synchronous child process is
running. 

wxMSW: Much work to correct painting (or leaving transparent) of
control backgrounds, properly using background themes on XP, etc.

Fixed a circular reference problem with wx.Timer.  It will now
completely cleanup after itself when the last reference to the timer
is removed.  If you were previously using timer.Destroy() to cleanup
your timers it will no longer work.  Instead you should hold a
reference to the timer and then del the reference when you are
finished with the timer.

Updated to 1.3.24 of SWIG.  All of my big patches have been applied to
the main SWIG source tree, but unfortunatly there were also some bugs
added that affected the wxPython build and a few details in my
original patch were changed/removed, so we are still not free of
patches.  A new patch for SWIG is located in the wxPython/SWIG
directory of the wxPython source tree.  SWIG 1.3.24 plus this patch
should be used by anyone who is making custom modifications to
wxPython's .i files, or building their own extension modules or
etc. that need to interact with the wxPython swigged types.  For the
morbidly curious, here are a few more details:

    * Since it is now possible easily and simply share the SWIG type
      tables across modules I reverted to always using the stock SWIG
      runtime instead of my slightly hacked up version of it exported
      via the wxPython C API.

    * The %name directive is now deprecated so I replaced most uses of
      it with a custom %Rename macro that uses %rename internally.
      These will evetually need to be replaced with a DocDecl macro
      when docstrings are added for those items.

    * The "this" attribute of all SWIGged classes is no longer a
      string containing a "swigified pointer", but rather a custom
      built-in type that holds the real C pointer to the object and
      the type info.  It can be converted to a string like the old
      value using str() or to the long integer value of the pointer
      using long().

Added SetDefaultPyEncoding and GetDefaultPyEncoding functions which
will set/get the encoding used by wxPython to convert string or
unicode objects to/from wxString objects.  Previously the default
Python encoding was always used, but unless the user had tweaked their
sitecustomize.py file it is always "ascii", which would result in
errors if the strings contained character codes >= 128.
SetDefaultPyEncoding will now allow you to control which encoding will
be used to do those conversions.  The default encoding is set to the
value of `locale.getdefaultlocale()[1]` when wxPython is first
imported.  Please see http://www.alanwood.net/demos/charsetdiffs.html
for information on the differences between the common latin/roman
encodings.

Added wxStdDialogButtonSizer, which is a a special sizer that knows
how to order and position standard buttons in order to conform to the
current platform's standards.  You simply need to add each `wx.Button`
to the sizer, and be sure to create the buttons using the standard
ID's.  Then call `Realize` and the sizer will take care of the rest.

wxMSW Toolbar: pass correct tool id (and not always -1) to the
EVT_TOOL_RCLICKED handler

wxGTK: Applied patch for combo box SELECTED events (no longer get
lots of surplus events)

wxGTK: Applied patch for proper menu highlight colour detection in
wx.SystemSettings.

wxGTK: Commited scrollbar patch #1093339 which sends lineup, linedown
events based on intercepting the mouse down events.

wxGTK: Applied patch #1102789 which solved conflicts between wxWidgets
and GTK+'s context menu code.

wxGTK: Applied patch #1100327 for correct feedback from DND actions
(not all actions are allowed).

Fixed memory leak in wxGrid::UpdateAttr[Rows][Or][Cols] (patch 1104355)

For efficiency reasons, text controls no longer set the string for
each text updated event, but rather query for the string value only
when GetString is called from an event handler.

Added wx.SL_INVERSE style which will cause wx.Slider to invert the min
and max ends of the slider.

Several patches applied, such as #1111174, #1110252 and others, that
make the generic wx.TreeCtrl (used on wxGTK and wxMac) be more
conistent with the wxMSW native wx.TreeCtrl.

XRCed:
    * Edit->Locate command (Ctrl-L) for quick selection of items.
      Works with event-handling controls (buttons, text fields) but
      not with labels/sizers.
    * Some improvements: relative paths for files supplied as command-
      line argument work correctly, notebook panels are highlighted
      better.

wxMac: Fixed a long-standing issue where wxSlider controls with a
hardcoded size would misplace their labels behind the slider control.

wx.HtmlListBox fixed so calling RefreshLine(s) will cause the data for
that line to be refetched from the overridden methods in the derived
class.

The default DoGetBestSize now includes the difference (if any) between
the client size and total size of the window, (such as the size of
borders.)  Code that sets the client size using the best size, or that
added extra space to sizers to compensate for this bug may need to be
changed.

Can suppress themed notebook pages with the wxNB_NOPAGETHEME style or
setting system option msw.notebook.themed-background to 0.

wxSyledTextCtrl updated to use Scintilla 1.62.

Can now set the msw.window.no-clip-children system option to 1 to
eliminate weird refresh behaviour (delays between a window being
erased and repainted, giving a ghostly gradual-redraw effect). May be
a temporary 'fix' until properly fixed before 2.6.

wxMac:  Toolbar is now more native looking with borderless toolbar
buttons.  

Added wx.DatePickerCtrl.

wx.html.HtmlWindow now supports background images.

Added wx.lib.gestures module from Daniel Pozmanter which supports
using Mouse Gestures in an application.

wxGTK2: ENTER and LEAVE mouse events are now sent for multi-line text
controls.

wxMSW:  "Alt" key (VK_MENU) now results in WXK_ALT keyboard event, not
WXK_MENU

Added modules from Peter Yared and Morgan Hua that implement the wx
Doc/View framework in pure Python code.  See wx.lib.docview for the
base implementation and wx.lib.pydocview for Python-specific
extensions.  There are also a couple sample applications located in
samples/docview. 





2.5.3.1
-------

wxMac focus and border refreshes corrected.

Updated internal PNG library.

wxMac fix for metal appearance on wx.ToolBar.

wx.grid.Grid fix allowing DoGetBestSize to be called before CreateGrid
(which means that a min size doesn't need to be specified.)

wxMac fix for not sending a native click to a control if it is not
enabled (does an enable itself)

Added wx.lib.ogl.DrawnShape, and fixed various little bugs in the new
OGL. 

Added support to XRC and XRCed for the 3-state checkbox flags and also
for wx.ToggleButton.  Updated the generic window styles supported by
XRCed. 

It is now possible to create "stock" buttons.  Basically this means
that you only have to provide one of the stock IDs (and either an
empty label or a label that matches the stock label) when creating the
button and wxWidgets will choose the stock label to go with it
automatically.  Additionally on the platforms that have a native
concept of a stock button (currently only GTK2) then the native stock
button will be used.  For example, the following will result in a
button with "Cancel" as the label and if run on wxGTK2 then there will
also be an image of a red X::

       b = wx.Button(parent, wx.ID_CANCEL) 


Added wx.lib.ticker.Ticker class from Chris Mellon.

Fix some incorrect clipping regions in wxSTC on wxGTK.

Added wrapper for wx.grid.Grid.GetOrCreateCellAttr.

Removed my copy of distutils from the wxPython source tree.  Now that
I am no longer doing builds on Python 2.1 the newest distutils is no
longer needed.  (There is still one small bug in Python 2.2 distutils
on win32, but it is easily worked around.) This sovles the problem of
incorrect builds on some systems where the system installed distutils
has been patched to behave slightly differently, for example SuSE on
x86_64 or Chandler's build.

Updated to SWIG 1.3.22 (plus my patch.)  See wxPython/SWIG/README.txt
in the source tree if you need to use SWIG when building your own copy
of wxPython, or other extension modules that need to integrate with
the wxPython modules.

Added wx.Frame.RequestUserAttention which, if the platform suports it,
will do something (such as flash the task bar item) to suggest to the
user that they should look at that window.

"Fixed" wx.grid.Grid.SetDefaultEditor and SetDefaultRenderer by making
them register the editor or renderer for the "string" data type.

Added depth param to wx.Image.ConvertToBitmap.

Extended the wx.calendar.CalendarCtrl class with methods that get/set
a Python datetime or date object.  (These will only work with Python
2.3+) The methods are PySetDate, PyGetDate, PySetLowerDateLimit,
PySetUpperDateLimit, PySetDateRange, PyGetLowerDateLimit, and
PyGetUpperDateLimit.  Also, CalendarEvent was extended with PySetDate
and PyGetDate methods.

wxMSW: SetBackgroundColour on a wx.Choice or a wx.ComboBox will now
also set the colour of the dropdown.

wxMac: MessageDialog now supports wx.NO_DEFAULT style

wxMSW: added AssociateHandle and DissociateHandle to wx.Window

wxMac: fix for toolbar tooltips

wx.Sizer.Show (and Hide) now take an optional parameter specifying if
the item to be shown should be searched for recursivly in subsizers,
and return a boolean value indicating if the item was found.

wxMSW: fixed MaximizeEvent generation in wx.Frame

wxMSW: fixed sending duplicate EVT_COMBOBOX events

Smoother time estimation updates in wx.ProgressDialog (patch 992813)

Made wx.Listbook events more consistent with wx.Notebook ones (patch
1001271)

Fixed rounding errors in variable status bar panes widths computation
(patch 1030021)

Added possibility to specify printer bin (patch 910272)

wxMSW: fixed wx.ListCtrl's SetWindowStyleFlag() to not remove
WS_VISIBLE; also refresh the control automatically (closes bug
1019440)

Added wx.Choicebook, yet another notebook-like control.

wxMSW: Make radiobutton tab behaviour the same on MSW as in standard
MSW app, i.e. tab into the activated, not necessarily the first radio
button.

Added limited support for wxEventLoop (you can't derive from a
wx.PyEventLoop version yet...)  Updated and moved the sample showing
how to replace the MainLoop to samples/mainloop/mainloop.py.

The C++ xrc lib has been moved out of contrib and into the core, so it
is always built by default.  wxPython's build has also changed
accordingly and will build the xrc module as part of the core set of
modules built by default.  If you were axplicitly using BUILD_XRC then
it will no longer be recognized as a build option, otherwise you
should notice no difference.

wxMac: Fixed radio toolbar buttons to correctly untoggle the others
when a new one is selected.

wxMac: Fixed GetLineLength and GetLineText for MLTE text controls

wxMac: wx.TaskBarIcon is implemented by allowing you to change the
app's icon on the Dock and also specifying a menu that should be
merged with the normal dock popup menu.  See the MigrationGuide for
more details and a warning.

Added wx.TopLevelWindow.IsActive() which tells you if the frame or
dialog is or containts the active window with the keyboard focus.

Added ability to create a font based on pixel size rather than point
size via the FontFromPixelSize constructor.

Updated the Scintilla used by StyledTextCtrl to version 1.61

Improved image HitTest for TreeListCtrl.

Added wx.App.IsMainLoopRunning.

wxGTK: Make wxComboBox spit out a bit fewer surplus events when
holding down the mouse button.

wxGTK: Enable key based navigation through notebook tabs as in the
native control with Left and right keys. Support for vetoing.

FloatCanvas updates from Chris Barker

PyPlot updates from Gordon Williams:
   - Added bar graph demo
   - Modified line end shape from round to square.
   - Removed FloatDCWrapper for conversion to ints and ints in
     arguments
   - Imported modules given leading underscore to name.
   - Added Cursor Line Tracking and User Point Labels. 
   - Demo for Cursor Line Tracking and Point Labels.
   - Size of plot preview frame adjusted to show page better.
   - Added helper functions PositionUserToScreen and
     PositionScreenToUser in PlotCanvas.
   - Added functions GetClosestPoints (all curves) and GetClosestPoint
     (only closest curve) can be in either user coords or screen
     coords.

MaskedEdit updates from Will Sadkin:
    - Added '*' mask char that means "all ansii chars" (ords 32-255)
    - Added proper unicode support to masked controls and wx.tools.dbg
    - Fixed two reported missing import bugs introduced by package
      creation
    - Converted masked package doc strings to reST format for better
      epydoc support
    - lots of doc string improvements and function hiding to better
      reflect package's public contents.

Restructured the installer packages slightly to help facilitate having
multiple versions of wxPython installed at the same time.  See the
Migrarion Guide for more information.

Applied patch from Pim Van Heuven that modifies 4 files:
    - wxPython/demo/ListCtrl_edit.py (new demo)
    - wxPython/demo/Main.py (include new demo in demo app)
    - wxPython/wx/lib/mixins/listctrl.py (several improvements to 
      TextEditMixin)
    - wxPython/wx/lib/wxpTag.py (some small fixes)

Added (thanks to Kevin Ollivier!) wrappers for wx.WebKitCtrl for the
OSX build.  Other platforms will raise an exception if you try to use
it. 

wxPython on OSX can now be built in Unicode mode, can support multiple
version installs, and comes with an uninstaller script.





2.5.2.8
-------

Predominantly a bug-fix release.

  * Fixed fatal error due to improper wrapping of wx.FSFile.

  * Fixed return type of EditableListBox.GetListCtrl

  * Give generic tree and list controls a DoGetBestSize so they play
    nicer with sizers when there is no minimal size.

  * Some tweaks in the demo and samples to correct layout, some
    flicker problems, and namespace use.

  * Add wx.Image.ConvertAlphaToMask

  * Minor corrections in wx.lib.dialogs

  * wx.FileHistory constructor now accepts the documented 2nd
    parameter.

  * Corrections for exceptions in the new ogl

  * Fixed XRCed to not use reparenting of windows to implement caching
    of property panels, since Reparent on wxMac is not implemented.

  * Add support for wxTAB_TRAVERSAL to the XRC handler for
    wxScrolledWindow. 

  * Add support for all wxListBox styles to the XRC handler for
    wxCheckListBox. 

  * Fix for wx.Listbook.DeleteAllPages to really delete everything.

  * wxGTK2 now supports alpha blended bitmap drawing

  * Made wx.grid.Grid play nicer with sizers.

  * etc.




2.5.2.7
-------

wx.ADJUST_MINSIZE is now the default behaviour for window items in
sizers.  This means that the item's GetMinSize and/or GetBestSize will
be called when calculating layout and the return value from that will
be used for the minimum size used by the sizer.  The wx.FIXED_MINSIZE
flag was added that will cause the sizer to use the old behaviour in
that it will *not* call the window's methods to determine the new best
size, instead the minsize that the window had when added to the sizer
(or the size the window was created with) will always be used.  Please
see the Sizers section in the Migration Guide for more details.

Added new MaskedEditControl code from Will Sadkin.  The modules are
now locaed in their own sub-package, wx.lib.masked.  Demos updated.

The changes that implemented the incompatible wx.DC methods in 2.5.1.5
have been reverted.  The wx.DC methods are now compatible with the 2.4
implemetation.  In addition a set of renamed methods have been added
that take wx.Point and/or wx.Size objects instead of individual
parameters. 

Added wx.lib.mixins.listctrl.TextEditMixin, a mixin class that allows
all columns of a wx.ListCtrl in report mode to be edited.

Deprecated the wx.iewin module.

Deprecated the wx.Sizer.AddWindow, AddSizer, AddSpacer methods as well
as their Insert* and Prepend* counterparts.

Added a generic StaticBitmap class in wx.lib.statbmp for the same
reasons that stattext was created, so it could be mouse sensitive on
all platforms like normal windows.  Also updated stattext.py and
buttons.py to handle attribute (font & colour) defaults and
inheritance the new way.  If you have custom controls of your own you
should review stattxt.py or one of the others to see how it is to be
done.

wx.InitAllImageHandlers is now an empty function that does nothing but
exist for backwards compatibility.  The C++ version is now called
automatically when wxPython is initialized.  Since all the handlers
are included in the wxWidgets shared library anyway, this imposes only
a very small amount of overhead and removes several unneccessary
problems.

Replaced wx/lib/pubsub.py with a version that uses weak references to
track the subscribers, plus other fixes/additions.  Thanks go to
Oliver Schoenborn and Robb Shecter.

wxGTK now uses gtk_init_check so wxPython can raise an exception if
there is no DISPLAY available or other initializaion problem.

wx.GetKeyState now has an implementation for wxGTK and is able to
detect the up/down or toggle state of modifier and toggle keys.

The LC_NUMERIC locale is now reset back to "C" (compatibility) when
running on wxGTK to work around the fact that GTK requires the locale
to be set to the system settings but Python depends on LC_NUMERIC
remaining compatible with "C".

Switched gizmos.TreeListCtrl to the newer version of the code from the
wxCode project.

OGL is dead! LONG LIVE OGL!  (Oops, sorry.  A bit of my dramatic side
leaked out there...)  The wx.ogl module has been deprecated in favor
of the new Python port of the OGL library located at wx.lib.ogl