wxPython README
---------------
-Introduction
-------------
-The code in this subtree is a Python Extension Module that enables the
-use of wxWindows from the Python language. So what is Python? Go to
-http://www.python.org to learn more but in a nutshell, it's an
-extremly cool object oriented language. It's easier than Perl and
-nearly as powerful. It runs on more platforms than Java, and by some
-reports, is even faster than Java with a JIT compiler!
-
-So why would you want to use wxPython over just C++ and wxWindows?
-Personally I prefer using Python for everything. I only use C++ when
-I absolutly have to eek more performance out of an algorithm, and even
-then I ususally code it as an extension module and leave the majority
-of the program in Python. Another good thing to use wxPython for is
-quick prototyping of your wxWindows apps. With C++ you have to
-continuously go though the edit-compile-link-run cycle, which can be
-quite time comsuming. With Python it is only an edit-run cycle. You
-can easily build an application in a few hours with Python that would
-normally take a few days with C++. Converting a wxPython app to a
-C++/wxWindows app should be a straight forward task.
-
-This extension module attempts to mirror the class heiarchy of
-wxWindows as closely as possble. This means that there is a wxFrame
-class in wxPython that looks, smells, tastes and acts almost the same
-as the wxFrame class in the C++ version. Unfortunatly, I wasn't able
-to match things exactly because of differences in the languages, but
-the differences should be easy to absorb because they are natural to
-Python. For example, some methods that return mutliple values via
-argument pointers in C++ will return a tuple of values in Python.
-These differences have not been documented yet so if something isn't
-working the same as described in the wxWindows documents the best
-thing to do is to scan through the wxPython sources, especially the .i
-files, as that is where the interfaces for wxPython are defined.
-
-I have reports of successfully embedding wxPython within a wxWindows
-C++ app on GTK. It hasn't yet been attempted on MSW (to my knowledge)
-so I don't know how successful such an attempt would be. However it
-is certainly possible.
+Welcome to the wonderful world of wxPython!
+
+Once you have installed the wxPython extension module, you can try it
+out by going to the [install dir]\wxPython\demo directory and typing:
+
+ python demo.py
+
+There are also some other sample files there for you to play with and
+learn from.
+
+If you selected to install the documentation then point your browser
+to [install dir]\wxPython\docs\index.htm and you will then be looking
+at the docs for wxWindows. For the most part you can use the C++ docs
+as most classes and methods are used identically. Where there are
+differences they are documented with a "wxPython Note."
+
+On Win32 systems the binary self-installer creates a program group on
+the Start Menu that contains a link to running the demo and a link to
+the help file. To help you save disk space I'm now using Microsoft's
+HTML Help format. If your system doesn't know what to do with the help
+file, you can install the HTML Help Viewer as part of IE 4+, NT
+Service Pack 4+, or the HTML Workshop at
+
+http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/author/htmlhelp/download.asp.
wxpython-users@starship.python.net
+----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+What's new in 2.1.4
+--------------------
+
+Much more support for event-less callbacks and add-on modules.
+
+Created add-on module with wxOGL classes.
+
+Added wxWindow.GetChildren(). Be careful of this. It returns a *copy*
+of the list of the window's children. While you are using the list if
+anything changes in the real list (a child is deleted, etc.) then the
+list you are holding will suddenly have window references to garbage
+memory and your app will likely crash. But if you are careful it works
+great!
+
+Added a bunch of new and missing methods to wxTreeCrtl. The
+SortChildren method is now supported, but currently only for the
+default sort order.
+
+Added typemaps for wxSize, wxPoint, wxRealPoint, and wxRect that allow
+either the actual objects or Python sequence values to be used. For
+example, the following are equivallent:
+
+ win = wxWindow(parent, size = wxSize(100, 100))
+ win = wxWindow(parent, size = (100, 100))
+
+Super-charged the wxHtml module. You can now create your own tag
+handlers and also have access to the parser and cell classes. There
+is a tag handler in the library at wxPython.lib.wxpTag that
+understands the WXP tag and is able to place wxPython windows on HTML
+pages. See the demo for an example.
+
+A bunch of the methods of wxMenuBar were previously ifdef'd out for
+wxGTK. Added them back in since the methods exist now.
+
+Wrapped the wxHtmlHelpController and related classes.
+
+Wrapped the C++ versions of wxSizer and firends. The Python-only
+versions are still in the library, but depreciated. (You will get a
+warning message if you try to use them, but the warning can be
+disabled.) The usage of the C++ versions is slightly different, and
+the functionality of wxBorderSizer is now part of wxBoxSizer. I have
+added a few methods to wxSizer to try and make the transition as
+smooth as possible, I combined all Add methods into a single method
+that handles all cases, added an AddMany method, etc. One step I did
+not take was to make the default value of flag in the Add method be
+wxGROW. This would have made it more backward compatible, but less
+portable to and from wxWin C++ code. Please see the docs and demo for
+further details.
+
+Added wxPyEvent and wxPyCommandEvent classes, derived from wxEvent and
+wxCommandEvent. Each of them has SetPyData and GetPyData methods that
+accept or return a single Python object. You can use these classes
+directly or derive from them to create your own types of event objects
+that can pass through the wxWindows event system without loosing their
+Python parts (as long as they are stored with SetPyData.) Stay tuned
+for more info and examples in future releases.
+
+Added wxPython.lib.grids as an example of how to derive a new sizer
+from the C++ sizers. In this module you will find wxGridSizer and
+wxFlexGridSizer. wxGridSizer arrainges its items in a grid in which
+all the widths and heights are the same. wxFlexgridSizer allows
+different widths and heights, and you can also specify rows and/or
+columns that are growable. See the demo for a couple examples for how
+to use them.
+
+Added the wxValidator class, and created a class named wxPyValidator
+that should be used for the base class of any Python validators. See
+the demo for an example. Please not that you MUST implement a Clone
+method in your validator classes because of the way some things work
+in the underlying C++ library. I did not add wxTextValidator because
+of some issues of how it transfers data to and from a wxString, which
+in wxPython is automatically translated to and from Python strings, so
+there would never be a concrete wxString that would hang around long
+enough for the validator to do its job. On the other hand, it should
+be real easy to duplicate the functionality of wxTextValidator in a
+pure Python class derived from wxPyValidator.
+
+I've finally added a feature that has been on my list for close to two
+years! Ever wondered what that zero is for when you create your app
+object? Well now you can leave it out or explicitly set it to a true
+value. This value now controls what is to be done with sys.stdout and
+sys.stderr. A false value leaves them alone, and a true value sets
+them to an instance of wxPyOnDemandOutputWindow. (On windows the
+default is true, on other platforms the default is false.) This class
+creates a frame containing a wxTextCtrl as soon as anything is written
+to sys.stdout or sys.stderr. If you close the window it will come
+back again the next time something is written. (You can call
+app.RestoreStdio to turn this off.) If you would rather that the stdio be
+redirected to a file, you can provide a second parameter to your app
+object's constructor that is a filename. If you want to use your own
+class instead of wxPyOnDemandOutputWindow you can either implement
+RedirectStdio() in you app class or change the value of
+wxApp.outputWindowClass like this:
+
+ class MyApp(wxApp):
+ outputWindowClass = MyClass
+
+ def OnInit(self):
+ frame = MyFrame()
+ self.SetTopWindow(frame)
+ return true
+
+Please see the implementation of wxPyOnDemandOutputWindow and wxApp in
+wx.py for more details. A few words of caution: if you are running
+your app in a debugger, changing sys.stdout and sys.stderr is likely
+to really screw things up.
+
+
+
+What's new in 2.1b3
+--------------------
+
+This release is syncronized with release 2.1 snapshot 9 of wxWindows.
+
+Switched to using SWIG from CVS (see http://swig.cs.uchicago.edu/cvs.html)
+for some of the new features and such. Also they have encorporated my
+patches so there is really no reason to stick with the current (very
+old) release... This version of SWIG gives the following new
+features:
+
+ 1. Keyword arguments. You no longer have to specify all the
+ parameters with defaults to a method just to specify a
+ non-default value on the end. You can now do this instead:
+
+ win = wxWindow(parent, -1, style = mystyle)
+
+ 2. There is now an an equivalence between Python's None and C++'s
+ NULL. This means that any methods that might return NULL will
+ now return None and you can use none where wxWindows might be
+ expecting NULL. This makes things much more snake-ish.
+
+
+There is a new build system based on a new Python program instead of
+raw makefiles. Now wxPython builds are virtually the same on MSW or
+Unix systems. See the end of this file for new build instructions and
+see distrib/build.py for more details.
+
+wxDC.Bilt now includes the useMask parameter, and has been split into
+two different versions. wxDC.BlitXY is like what was there before and
+takes raw coordinants and sizes, and the new wxDC.Blit is for the new
+interface using wxPoints and a wxSize.
+
+
+
+
+
+What's new in 2.1b2
+--------------------
+
+Added the missing wxWindow.GetUpdateRegion() method.
+
+Made a new change in SWIG (update your patches everybody) that
+provides a fix for global shadow objects that get an exception in
+their __del__ when their extension module has already been deleted.
+It was only a 1 line change in .../SWIG/Modules/pycpp.cxx at about
+line 496 if you want to do it by hand.
+
+It is now possible to run through MainLoop more than once in any one
+process. The cleanup that used to happen as MainLoop completed (and
+prevented it from running again) has been delayed until the wxc module
+is being unloaded by Python.
+
+I fixed a bunch of stuff in the C++ version of wxGrid so it wouldn't
+make wxPython look bad.
+
+wxWindow.PopupMenu() now takes a wxPoint instead of x,y. Added
+wxWindow.PopupMenuXY to be consistent with some other methods.
+
+Added wxGrid.SetEditInPlace and wxGrid.GetEditInPlace.
+
+You can now provide your own app.MainLoop method. See
+wxPython/demo/demoMainLoop.py for an example and some explaination.
+
+Got the in-place-edit for the wxTreeCtrl fixed and added some demo
+code to show how to use it.
+
+Put the wxIcon constructor back in for GTK as it now has one that
+matches MSW's.
+
+Added wxGrid.GetCells
+
+Added wxSystemSettings static methods as functions with names like
+wxSystemSettings_GetSystemColour.
+
+Removed wxPyMenu since using menu callbacks have been depreciated in
+wxWindows. Use wxMenu and events instead.
+
+Added alternate wxBitmap constructor (for MSW only) as
+ wxBitmapFromData(data, type, width, height, depth = 1)
+
+Added a helper function named wxPyTypeCast that can convert shadow
+objects of one type into shadow objects of another type. (Like doing
+a down-cast.) See the implementation in wx.py for some docs.
+
+Fixed wxImage GetData and SetData to properly use String objects for
+data transfer.
+
+Added access methods to wxGridEvent.
+
+New Makefile/Setup files supporting multiple dynamic extension modules
+for unix systems.
+
+Fixes for the wxGLCanvas demo to work around a strange bug in gtk.
+
+SWIG support routines now compiled separately instead of being bundled
+in wx.cpp.
+
+
+What's new in 2.1b1
+--------------------
+Fixed wxComboBox.SetSelection so that it actually sets the selected
+item. (Actually just removed it from wxPython and let it default to
+wxChoice.SetSelection which was already doing the right thing.)
+
+Added the Printing Framework.
+
+Switched back to using the wxWindows DLL for the pre-built Win32
+version. The problem was needing to reinitialize static class info
+data after loading each extension module.
+
+Lots of little tweaks and additions to reflect changes to various
+wxWindows classes.
+
+Fixed a bug with attaching objects to tree items. Actually was a
+symptom of a larger problem with not obtaining the interpreter lock
+when doing any Py_DECREFs.
+
+wxSizer and friends. Sizers are layout tools that manage a colection
+of windows and sizers. Different types of sizers apply different
+types of layout algorithms. You saw it here first! These classes are
+not even in the wxWindows C++ library yet!
+
+
+
+What's new in 2.0b9
+-------------------
+Bug fix for ListCtrl in test4.py (Was a missing file... DSM!)
+
+Bug fix for occassional GPF on Win32 systems upon termination of a
+wxPython application.
+
+Added wxListBox.GetSelections returning selections as a Tuple.
+
+Added a wxTreeItemData that is able to hold any Python object and be
+associated with items in a wxTreeCtrl. Added test pytree.py to show
+this feature off.
+
+Added wxSafeYield function.
+
+OpenGL Canvas can be optionally compiled in to wxPython.
+
+Awesome new Demo Framework for showing off wxPython and for learning
+how it all works.
+
+The pre-built Win32 version is no longer distributing the wxWindows
+DLL. It is statically linked with the wxWindows library instead.
+
+Added a couple missing items from the docs.
+
+Added wxImage, wxImageHandler, wxPNGHandler, wxJPEGHandler,
+wxGIFHandler and wxBMPHandler.
+
+Added new methods to wxTextCtrl.
+
+Fixed some problems with how SWIG was wrapping some wxTreeCtrl
+methods.
+
+
+
+What's new in 2.0b8
+-------------------
+Support for using Python threads in wxPython apps.
+
+Several missing methods from various classes.
+
+Various bug fixes.
+
+
+
+What's new in 2.0b7
+-------------------
+Added DLG_PNT and DLG_SZE convienience methods to wxWindow class.
+
+Added missing constructor and other methods for wxMenuItem.
+
+
+
+What's new in 2.0b6
+-------------------
+Just a quickie update to fix the self-installer to be compatible with
+Python 1.5.2b2's Registry settings.
+
+
What's new in 2.0b5
-------------------
Well obviously the numbering scheme has changed. I did this to
I have finally started documenting wxPython. There are several pages
in the wxWindows documentation tree specifically about wxPython, and I
-have added notes within the class references about where wxPython
+have added notes within the class references about where and how wxPython
diverges from wxWindows.
Added wxWindow_FromHWND(hWnd) for wxMSW to construct a wxWindow from a
DSM (Dumb Stupid Mistake) on my part but it was nasty none the less
because the behavior was so different on different platforms.
-
The dynamicly loaded module on Solaris is still segfaulting, so it
must have been a different issue all along...
3. Varioius bug fixes, enhancements, etc.
+----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
Build Instructions
generated C++ code is included under the src directory.
I added a few minor features to SWIG to control some of the code
-generation. If you want to playaround with this the patches are in
-wxPython/SWIG.patches and they should be applied to the 1.1p5 version
-of SWIG. These new patches are documented at
-http://starship.skyport.net/crew/robind/python/#swig, and they should
-also end up in the 1.2 version of SWIG.
+generation. If you want to play around with this you will need to get
+a recent version of SWIG from their CVS or from a daily build. See
+http://www.swig.org/ for details.
wxPython is organized as a Python package. This means that the
directory containing the results of the build process should be a
subdirectory of a directory on the PYTHONPATH. (And preferably should
be named wxPython.) You can control where the build process will dump
-wxPython by setting the TARGETDIR makefile variable. The default is
-$(WXWIN)/utils/wxPython, where this README.txt is located. If you
-leave it here then you should add $(WXWIN)/utils to your PYTHONPATH.
-However, you may prefer to use something that is already on your
-PYTHONPATH, such as the site-packages directory on Unix systems.
-
-
-Win32
------
-
-1. Build wxWindows with wxUSE_RESOURCE_LOADING_IN_MSW set to 1 in
-include/wx/msw/setup.h so icons can be loaded dynamically. While
-there, make sure wxUSE_OWNER_DRAWN is also set to 1.
+wxPython by setting the TARGETDIR variable for the build utility, (see
+below.)
-2. Change into the $(WXWIN)/utils/wxPython/src directory.
-3. Edit makefile.vc and specify where your python installation is at.
-You may also want to fiddle with the TARGETDIR variable as described
-above.
+1. Build wxWindows as described in its BuildCVS.txt file. For *nix
+ systems I run configure with these flags:
-4. Run nmake -f makefile.vc
+ --with-gtk
+ --with-libjpeg
+ --without-odbc
+ --enable-unicode=no
+ --enable-threads=yes
+ --enable-socket=yes
+ --enable-static=no
+ --enable-shared=yes
+ --disable-std_iostreams
-5. If it builds successfully, congratulations! Move on to the next
-step. If not then you can try mailing me for help. Also, I will
-always have a pre-built win32 version of this extension module at
-http://starship.skyport.net/crew/robind/python.
+ You can use whatever flags you want, but I know these work.
-6. Change to the $(WXWIN)/utils/wxPython/tests directory.
+ For Win32 systems I use Visual C++ 6.0, but 5.0 should work. The
+ build utility currently does not support any other win32 compilers.
-7. Try executing the test programs. Note that some of these print
-diagnositc or test info to standard output, so they will require the
-console version of python. For example:
+2. At this point you may want to make an alias or symlink, script,
+ batch file, whatever on the PATH that invokes
+ $(WXWIN)/utils/wxPython/distrib/build.py to help simplify matters
+ somewhat. For example, on my win32 system I have a file named
+ build.bat in a directory on the PATH that contains:
- python test1.py
+ python $(WXWIN)/utils/wxPython/distrib/build.py %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6
-To run them without requiring a console, you can use the pythonw.exe
-version of Python either from the command line or from a shortcut.
+3. Change into the $(WXWIN)/utils/wxPython/src directory.
+4. Type "build -b" to build wxPython and "build -i" to install it.
-Unix
-----
+ The build.py script actually generates a Makefile based on what it
+ finds on your system and information found in the build.cfg file.
+ If you have troubles building or you want it built or installed in
+ a different way, take a look at the docstring in build.py. You may
+ be able to override configuration options in a file named
+ build.local.
-1. Change into the $(WXWIN)/utils/wxPython/src directory.
+5. To build and install the add-on modules, change to the appropriate
+ directory under $(WXWIN)/utils/wxPython/modules and run the build
+ utility again.
-2. Edit Setup.in and ensure that the flags, directories, and toolkit
-options are correct. See the above commentary about TARGETDIR. There
-are a few sample Setup.in.[platform] files provided.
+6. Change to the $(WXWIN)/utils/wxPython/demo directory.
-3. Run this command to generate a makefile:
+7. Try executing the demo program. For example:
- make -f Makefile.pre.in boot
+ python demo.py
-4. Run these commands to build and then install the wxPython extension
-module:
+To run it without requiring a console on win32, you can use the
+pythonw.exe version of Python either from the command line or from a
+shortcut.
- make
- make install
-5. Change to the $(WXWIN)/utils/wxPython/tests directory.
-
-6. Try executing the test programs. For example:
-
- python test1.py
+----------------
+Robin Dunn
+robin@alldunn.com
-------------------------
-10/20/1998
-Robin Dunn
-robin@alldunn.com
projects / wxWidgets.git / blobdiff