utils/wxPython/README.txt

   1 wxPython README
   2 ---------------
   3
   4 Introduction
   5 ------------
   6 The code in this subtree is a Python Extension Module that enables the
   7 use of wxWindows from the Python language.  So what is Python?  Go to
   8 http://www.python.org to learn more but in a nutshell, it's an
   9 extremly cool object oriented language.  It's easier than Perl and
  10 nearly as powerful.  It runs on more platforms than Java, and by some
  11 reports, is even faster than Java with a JIT compiler!
  12
  13 So why would you wan to use wxPython over just C++ and wxWindows?
  14 Personally I prefer using Python for everything.  I only use C++ when
  15 I absolutly have to eek more performance out of an algorithm, and even
  16 then I ususally code it as an extension module and leave the majority
  17 of the program in Python.  Another good thing to use wxPython for is
  18 quick prototyping of your wxWindows apps.  With C++ you have to
  19 continuously go though the edit-compile-link-run cycle, which can be
  20 quite time comsuming.  With Python it is only an edit-run cycle.  You
  21 can easily build an application in a few hours with Python that would
  22 normally take a few days with C++.  Converting a wxPython app to a
  23 C++/wxWindows app should be a straight forward task.
  24
  25 This extension module attempts to mirror the class heiarchy of
  26 wxWindows as closely as possble.  This means that there is a wxFrame
  27 class in wxPython that looks, smells, tastes and acts almost the same
  28 as the wxFrame class in the C++ version.  Unfortunatly, I wasn't able
  29 to match things exactly because of differences in the languages, but
  30 the differences should be easy to absorb because they are natural to
  31 Python.  For example, some methods that return mutliple values via
  32 argument pointers in C++ will return a tuple of values in Python.
  33 These differences have not been documented yet so if something isn't
  34 working the same as described in the wxWindows documents the best
  35 thing to do is to scan through the wxPython sources.
  36
  37 Currently this extension module is designed such that the entire
  38 application will be written in Python.  I havn't tried it yet, but I
  39 am sure that attempting to embed wxPython in a C++ wxWindows
  40 application will cause problems.  However there is a plan to support
  41 this in the future.
  42
  43
  44
  45 Build Instructions
  46 ------------------
  47 I used SWIG (http://www.swig.org) to create the source code for the
  48 extension module.  This enabled me to only have to deal with a small
  49 amount of code and only have to bother with the exceptional issues.
  50 SWIG takes care of the rest and generates all the repetative code for
  51 me.  You don't need SWIG to build the extension module as all the
  52 generated C++ code is included in the src directory.
  53
  54 wxPython is organized as a Python package.  This means that the
  55 directory containing the results of the build process should be a
  56 subdirectory of a directory on the PYTHONPATH.  (And preferably should
  57 be named wxPython.)  You can control where the bulid process will dump
  58 wxPython by setting the TARGETDIR makefile variable.  The default is
  59 $(WXWIN)/utils/wxPython, where this README.txt is located.  If you
  60 leave it here then you should add $(WXWIN)/utils to your PYTHONPATH.
  61 However, you may prefer to use something that is already on your
  62 PYTHONPATH, such as the site-packages directory on Unix systems.
  63
  64
  65 Win32
  66 -----
  67
  68 1. Build wxWindows with USE_RESOURCE_LOADING_IN_MSW set to 1 in
  69 include/wx/msw/setup.h so icons can be loaded dynamically.
  70
  71 2. Change into the $(WXWIN)/utils/wxPython/src directory.
  72
  73 3. Edit makefile.nt and specify where your python installation is at.
  74 You may also want to fiddle with the TARGETDIR variable as described
  75 above.
  76
  77 4. Run nmake -f makefile.nt
  78
  79 5. If it builds successfully, congratulations!  Move on to the next
  80 step.  If not then you can try mailing me for help.  Also, I will
  81 always have a pre-built win32 version of this extension module at
  82 http://starship.skyport.net/crew/robind/python.
  83
  84 6. Change to the $(WXWIN)/utils/wxPython/tests directory.
  85
  86 7. Try executing the test programs.  Note that some of these print
  87 diagnositc or test info to standard output, so they will require the
  88 console version of python.  For example:
  89
  90     python test1.py
  91
  92 To run them without requiring a console, you can use the pythonw.exe
  93 version of Python either from the command line or from a shortcut.
  94
  95
  96
  97 Unix
  98 ----
  99
 100 NOTE:  I don't have wxPython working yet with wxGTK, so if you aren't
 101 using Win32 you can skip the rest of this file and check back in a
 102 week or so.
 103
 104
 105 1. Change into the $(WXWIN)/utils/wxPython/src directory.
 106
 107 2. Edit Setup.in and ensure that the flags, directories, and toolkit
 108 options are correct.  See the above commentary about TARGETDIR.
 109
 110 3. Run this command to generate a makefile:
 111
 112     make -f Makefile.pre.in boot
 113
 114 4. Run these commands to build and then install the wxPython extension
 115 module:
 116
 117     make
 118     make install
 119
 120
 121 5. Change to the $(WXWIN)/utils/wxPython/tests directory.
 122
 123 6. Try executing the test programs.  For example:
 124
 125     python test1.py
 126
 127
 128
 129 ------------------------
 130 8/8/1998
 131
 132 Robin Dunn
 133 robind@earthling.net