I've decided to start working on a personal project, attempting to develop a cross platform, MSPaint like app. Oddly enough, I find mspaint is one of the applications I miss the most on Linux or OS X, so I want to try to make something similar. Tuxpaint, mtpaint, gpaint, etc. are all old and inactive and ugly. I don't want to make GIMP, just the basics, similar in features to MS Paint.
I'm thinking of doing it in python with the pygtk toolkit, but I was interested to hear your suggestions. Would C/C++ be a better choice, or even C# (gasp!) with mono? How about using Qt as opposed to GTK, or maybe some other fancy library I don't know about (Please, not FLTK!). I'd be curious to hear your thoughts.
Thanks!
Qt's canvas object (or its newer replacement QGraphicsView) can do pretty cool things. Whether you choose C++ or python is a matter of personal choice, as Qt is supported in both languages. For a simple project like this I'd choose python because killer performance is not much of an issue, and it will be much easier to write.
Another thing to look into is making this app web based with HTML5's canvas object and Javascript. It can be surprisingly robust, and anything that can be put on the cloud is a win in most cases.
If you decide to go with Python (which would be my choice because it's such a simple language), then TkInter is considered the de-facto standard GUI package. That link should send you to some excellent starting references for TkInter, although I also really like Not_a_Golfer's suggestion of an HTML5 web-app.
Short: You can use both, no third party library is guaranteed to be distributed with all major distributions.
Long:
Gtk+ vs. Qt
What do you want incorporate into your application. If it is just selecting a brush, selecting color you could pretty much use any gui toolkit.
If you are going to run it as a web-based tool, Gtk+ has an html5 backend renderer (I don't know about Qt)
A sidenote:
I recommend to use the toolkit's native programming language (gtk+ C, Qt C++) - if you don't, you will suffer from delays with bugfixes, generally more bugs and delayed releases, though for that case it shouldn't really matter.
Everything else boils down to personal preferences and there already exist some questions to tackling that issue.
if you are using qt,you can use QtitanRibbon
Related
I'm looking for a framework for drawing 2D scenes in Python. Not for game programming, but for 'office' like applications (e.g. drawing diagrams, mindmaps etc).
Preferable something that can be used with wxPython.
wxPython comes with OGL, but that is very old and no-one seems to use it any more (I couldn't find a reference to it in any recent project in sourceforge or google code).
The Qt (PyQt) framework has the Scenegraph thing, which I've used in some C++ projects, but I think PyQt with the Qt dependencies is too big.
Requirements are :
- managing objects
- hit-testing of objects
- ability to print the scenes
- modern look (at least anti-aliasing of lines)
I've been looking for some days now, but can't find anything that even comes close to PyQt's Scenegraph. I've been thinking about modifying OGL to use a wxGraphicsContext...
P.S. Anyone using OGL, please shout 'OGL is not dead' :-)
You might be able to use floatcanvas for this. Joran mentioned PyGame, which is certainly a legitimate option. I would also take a look at the WhyteBoard project (https://code.google.com/p/whyteboard/) which is written in wxPython and does a few of the items you mentioned. Finally, wxPython supports Cairo, which you also might find helpful. There are several demos of Cairo in the wxPython demo. By the way, wx.GraphicsContext (which you had mentioned) supports anti-aliasing, as does Cairo.
We are in the process of standing up a UI on top of a python system. This is all throw away code, so we want something quick, yet presentable.
We will have a couple of "interfaces" but they will be of two types. One will be control, it will basically be sitting on top of a python thread, and accepting requests from the user.
The other will be more of a display screen that will need to be able to display images, and some classic "grid views" of text to the user.
We pretty much know we could* do all of this in HTML but wasn't sure what would be the best way to interact with the core python code?
Anyone know of a good UI python presentation layer? Since we know we can do all of this in HTML/Jquery pretty quickly, we are also open to suggestions on how to integrate this with a web server..
Any suggestions? Really interested in finding out if there is any way to use python as the back end to a webserver.
Let me know if you all need more information.
I like wxPython. The demo application is excellent and lets you browse, tweak and re-run the code right in the demo.
We have found the DJango meets our needs. It is a pretty slick mvc style python web stack. Really is easy to use, and very quick to develop in. I will say that the ORM layer is a little young so it is hard to do some simple queries, but luckly since this is throw away code we can just use native sql.
Tkinter is probably going to be the solution you can use quickest. Its API is simple and straight-forward, and you probably already have it installed.
As the other 2 classic Python GUI options have been given already, I feel duty bound to suggest PyQt :)
Using QT Designer I've found it much simpler than TKInter to get some basic GUIs up and running. Build your GUI up in a WYSIWYG way, then hook it up to the back-end logic. I've also found that the large amount of C++ help on QT available on the interent usually translates more or less directly across to PyQt. The resources available for TKInter are IMO pretty obtuse, and simply stop as soon as you want to do anything more interesting than Hello World. YMMV.
The Rapid GUI Programming with Python and QT book is a fantastic resource. Had me programming real applications in no time.
Curious if there are any higher level frameworks that attempt to wrap Tkinter? For example, wxPython is wrapped by the Dabo framework (http://dabodev.com/) and PythonCard.
Motivation: We've recently moved to Python 2.7 (Windows) and are very impressed with the new ttk (Tile) support which allows one to build professional quality, platform native GUI's using the built-in Tkinter framework. In the past we would have used wxPython to create simple GUI interfaces for our command line utilities, but we're re-thinking this strategy in favor of using Tkinter/ttk for these use cases.
We're new to Tkinter (coming from wxPython) and while Tkinter/ttk seem to be simple to use, there seems to be a lot of repeated boilerplate code that we're writing. Before we try to wrap up some of our code in a home made set of classes, I want to make sure that we're not re-inventing the wheel.
Probably a little bit late for you. But I've just released a tkinter framework in beta called tKroopy. Which aims to provide a means for switching between dialogs and provide some higher level widgets, like easily displaying tabulated data.
It was designed for building lots of small to medium applications and grouping them together in a single application, but there is no reason why you couldn't use it to build a single large scale application too.
https://github.com/tKroopy/tkroopy
The only one I knew about seems quite stale, Python megawidgets.
You can find a list of others on the Tkinter wiki.
tkRAD supports python 2 and 3 and looks mature
https://pypi.python.org/pypi/tkRAD/1.6.5
I am not sure if my question title makes sense to you or not. I am seeing many cool applications which have cool animations/effects. I would like to learn how to use python to create this kind of GUI applications under Linux.
"cool animation/effects" like 3D wall in Cooliris which is written in flash and compiz effects with opengl.
I also heard of some python GUI library like wxPython and pyQT. Since I am completely new to python GUI programming, can anyone suggest me where to start and what I should learn to achieve and create such application? maybe learn pyQT with openGL feature? pyopengl binding? I have no clue on where to start. thank you very much for your time and suggestion.
By the way, in case if someone need to know which kind of application I am going to create, well, just any kind of applications. maybe photo explorer with 3D wall, maybe IM client, maybe facebook client etc...
http://techbase.kde.org/Development/Languages/Python
Many KDE styles use SVG and plenty of animation. The user can always change themes. I think you should be more specific about what kind of animations you want to do. I don't think 3D wall type affects really fall into the widget category that QT is. It sounds to me like you want to make a 3D interface for an application. If that is the case, you may want to look more into 3D engine type libraries used mainly in games. I know that some have excellent GUI widgets for programming game menus and the like. I guess you'd decide on your engine and the see if there are python language bindings. One of my favorite engines: http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/links.html
Another thing you would want to consider is how you want to handle the window management. Do you want to make a full screen interface? Or is to to be windowed? Also how would such an application integrate into a 3D window manager or rather a window manager with compositing.
Edit:
In that case the qtopengl module is probably something to look into: http://doc.qt.nokia.com/4.6/qtopengl.html
I do recommend QT. It's clean and easy to use and cross platform. So your app could run on windows as well.
One thing you'd want to think about before hand is the type of FX you want to perform. For example, if you want to create a page curl type effect when renaming the image, you'd have to think about how to program that, or look for libraries/code snipets that do that math. 3D engines that are used in games often have a lot of support for those kind of typical FX or animations that you'd see in a game. If you use something like qtopengl, you'd need to think about this as well. qtopengl can pretty much only render. Think of it as a viewport. However, it is the correct approach to making a 3D application for the desktop.
Programming 3D applications is really interesting and fun. I enjoyed it a lot. However, don't get discouraged be the math. I recommend getting a book about it if you are serious. I liked this one: http://www.amazon.com/Primer-Graphics-Development-Wordware-Library/dp/1556229119
However, IIRC the examples are C++ which you may not be comfortable with. When you understand such mathematical concepts, it easier to think about how you would make a page curl type affect. Of course, if you find libraries or code that shows you how to do the math, that may be fine.
May be, just create a GUI and all effects will make compiz?
Anyway, as I know QT have ability to use openGL.
http://doc.qt.nokia.com/4.1/examples.html#opengl-examples
I have some knowledge about Human computer interaction and some basic knowledge programming scripts (Python) that run from start to finish and automate some tasks I want to do or calculations. In the past I built interfaces in HTML with PHP behind it.
I would like my python scripts to evolve from the command line and build some applications with GUIs that would allow the user to drag files and push buttons to initiate operations and check progress graphically.
Since I write my scripts in Python I looked at some of the options (Tkinter, wxPython, PyQt) but I can't make a decision between them to invest my time learn one and not the other. My criteria:
Has a introduction for programmers for GUI (what are the differences from a script, examples of some simple interfaces)
A framework that would allow me to run my programs on the platforms I use most (Windows) but that can also run on Mac and maybe Linux, without too much modification.
Very shallow learning curve (easy to make first interfaces) but flexibility later on to customize the interface beyond what the typical OS allows (different colors, size and shapes of buttons, for example)
If not the same, similar to how you program GUI for Android and/or Nokia smartphones. I'm planning to write some programs for these platforms in the near future so I would like to carry over some of the lessons here onto those platforms, if possible.
I did find this previous question but none of the answers are satisfactory.
Does any of the frameworks fit these requirements better than the others or are they essentially similar and I would be happy with any of them?
Note: If you think I should consider other language rather than Python to achieve this, which one? I really like Python whitespace syntax and have grown used to it so I would prefer to stick with it.
PyQt and/or the very similar Nokia-sponsored PySide (with a more "relaxed" license, LGPL instead of GPL, and the same underlying toolkit, Qt) do offer the advantage of similarity with Nokia's smartphones GUI toolkit (your fourth point) -- Nokia purchased Trolltech, the makers of Qt, exactly because Qt was the fundamental GUI toolkit for their mobile offerings.
All the toolkits you mention satisfy the conditions you pose about operating systems (Windows, Mac, Linux), your second point.
Your first and to some extend third points depend in good part of what learning materials you have available for each of the toolkits. To my tastes, it seems that wxPython's tutorial (the new one in wiki form is what I'm pointing to and recommending) is really good, and PyQt's not bad at all; PySide's docs don't include a good tutorial (that I know of), I believe PySide's intention is that you first learn PyQt (with the reasonable available materials), then apply these few differences to be programming in PySide instead of PyQt;-). Tkinter's tutorials that I can find are either very old or focused on the underlying toolkit's multi-language nature, which I think makes them inferior.
If you can afford a book, PyQt has a good one (also applies to PySide, as above) -- this excellent and free one is unfortunately very old, so I don't think it helps. wxPython's own book is also quite good; tkinter's, again, is very dated.
Personally I recommend PyQt / PySide: overall power A+, ease to get started (with the above tutorial and book) A-, Nokia-phone programmer similarity A. For wxPython I'd say power A, ease A, Nokia-similarity B. Tkinter's dated tutorials and book are important negatives.
You also mention Android, but I don't see how anything could be similar to both Android and Nokia's phone-GUI programming at the same time. Maybe I'm not familiar enough with Android GUI programming, but it seems to me that it differs from every one of the toolkits you've mentioned.
PyGTK fufills at least the first three points. I'm not sure on the fourth. It has a nice tutorial here: http://www.pygtk.org/pygtk2tutorial/index.html
I guess you are looking for Glade.
The site says:
Glade is a RAD tool to enable quick & easy development of user
interfaces for the GTK+ toolkit and the GNOME desktop environment.
The user interfaces designed in Glade are saved as XML, and by using
the GtkBuilder GTK+ object these can be loaded by applications
dynamically as needed.
By using GtkBuilder, Glade XML files can be used in numerous
programming languages including C, C++, C#, Vala, Java, Perl,
Python,and others.
I am a pretty noob programmer yet, but I am having just a few issues to get things started with C and Glade. So I guess you will run smoothly here with your snake. Take a look.