Announcing ---------- The 2.7.1.1 release of wxPython is now available for download at http://wxpython.org/download.php. This release is the first offical release in the 2.7.x development series, and includes a lot of new features, enhancements and fixes. Source and binaries are available for both Python 2.4 and 2.5 for Windows and Mac, as well some pacakges for varous Linux distributions. A summary of changes is listed below and also at http://wxpython.org/recentchanges.php. What is wxPython? ----------------- wxPython is a GUI toolkit for the Python programming language. It allows Python programmers to create programs with a robust, highly functional graphical user interface, simply and easily. It is implemented as a Python extension module that wraps the GUI components of the popular wxWidgets cross platform library, which is written in C++. wxPython is a cross-platform toolkit. This means that the same program will usually run on multiple platforms without modifications. Currently supported platforms are 32-bit Microsoft Windows, most Linux or other Unix-like systems using GTK2, and Mac OS X 10.3+, in most cases the native widgets are used on each platform. Changes in 2.7.1.1 ------------------ The following deprecated items have been removed: * wx.Bitmap SetQuality and GetQuality methods * The wx.GetNumberFromUser function * wx.EVT_LIST_GET_INFO and wx.EVT_LIST_SET_INFO * wx.BookCtrlSizer and wx.NotebookSizer * The PostScript-specific methods of wx.PrintData * wx.PrintDialogData SetSetupDialog and GetSetupDialog methods * wx.FontMapper SetConfig method * wx.html.HtmlSearchStatus.GetContentsItem method * wx.html.HtmlHelpData.GetContents, GetContentsCnt, GetIndex, and GetIndexCnt methods wx.EventLoop is now implemented for wxMac. Added wxPython wrappers for the new wx.Treebook and wx.Toolbook classes. wx.DC.BeginDrawing and EndDrawing have been deprecated in the C++ code, so since they never really did anything before they are now just empty stubs in wxPython. Solved a problem that has been around for a very long time in how C++ methods are virtualized for overriding in derived Python classes. Previously we couldn't do it for methods that needed to also exist in the base class wrappers such that they could be called normally. (The reasons are long and complex, but suffice it to say that it was due to mixing C++'s dynamic dispatch, and Python's runtime lookup of the method attributes resulting in endless recursion of function calls.) Because of this problem I used a hack that I have always hated, and that is renaming the base class methods with a "base_*" prefix, for example wx.Printout.base_OnBeginDocument. Now that the problem has finally been solved I have replaced all the base_Whatever() methods with the real Whatever() method as well as a simple wrapper named base_Whatever that is marked as deprecated. So now instead of writing your overridden methods like this:: def OnBeginDocument(self, start, end): # do something here return self.base_OnBeginDocument(start, end) You can now call the base class method the normal way, like this:: def OnBeginDocument(self, start, end): # do something here return Printout.OnBeginDocument(self, start, end) Or like this with super():: def OnBeginDocument(self, start, end): # do something here return super(MyPrintout, self).OnBeginDocument(start, end) Note that the old way with the "base_*" function still works, but you will get a DeprecationWarning from calling base_OnBeginDocument. The classes affected by this are: * wx.DropSource * wx.DropTarget * wx.TextDropTarget * wx.FileDropTarget * wx.PyLog (also added the ability to override Flush) * wx.PyApp (also added the ability to override ExitMainLoop) * wx.Printout * wx.PyPrintPreview * wx.PyPreviewFrame * wx.PreviewControlBar * wx.Process * wx.PyControl * wx.PyPanel * wx.PyScrolledWindow * wx.PyWindow * wx.Timer * wx.grid.PyGridCellRenderer * wx.grid.PyGridCellEditor * wx.grid.PyGridCellAttrProvider * wx.grid.PyGridTableBase * wx.html.HtmlWindow * wx.wizard.PyWizardPage Added the wx.DC.GradientFillConcentric and wx.DC.GradientFillLinear methods. wxGTK: wx.ListBox and wx.CheckListBox are now using native GTK2 widgets. Added wx.ListBox.HitTest() from patch 1446207 Bumped up to SWIG 1.3.29. This provides some more runtime performance boosts, gets rid of the dreaded Ptr classes, and some other nice new things. Added wx.Window.GetScreenPosition and GetScreenRect which returns the position of the window in screen coordinates, even if the window is not a top-level window. Added GetResourcesDir and GetLocalizedResourcesDir to wx.StandardPaths. Added a GetReceivedFormat method to wx.DataObjectComposite. You can use this to find out what format of data object was recieved from the source of the clipboard or DnD operation, and then you'll know which of the component data objects to use to access the data. Changed how the stock objects (wx.RED, wx.RED_PEN, wx.RED_BRUSH, etc.) are initialized. They are now created as uninitialized instances using __new__. Then after the wx.App has been created, but before OnInit is called, the .this attribute of each object is initialized. This was needed because of some delayed initialization functionality that was implemented in wxWidgets, but the end result is cleaner for wxPython as well, and allowed me to remove some ugly code previously hidden under the covers. Added wx.StandardPaths.GetDocumentsDir. Added wx.RendererNative.DrawCheckButton. wx.ProgressDialog.Update now returns a tuple of two values. The first is a continue flag (what was returned before) and the second is a skip flag. If the dialog has the wx.PD_CAN_SKIP flag and if the Skip button is clicked, then the skip flag is set to True the next time Update is called. A DeprecationWarning is now issued when the old wxPython package is imported. If you are still using the old namespace please convert your code to use the new wx package instead. Added wrappers for Julian's new wxRichTextCtrl class, visible in wxPython as wx.richtext.RichTextCtrl window. It still needs some more work, but it is a great start. wx.lib.mixins.listctrl.TextEditMixin: Fixed the double END_LABEL_EDIT event problem in TextEditMixin by checking if the editor was already hidden before continuing with the CloseEditor method. Also added code to OpenEditor to send the BEGIN_LABEL_EDIT event and to not allow the opening of the editor to continue if the event handler doesn't allow it. wx.StaticBoxSizer now keeps better track of the wx.StaticBox, and it will destroy it if the sizer is destroyed before the parent window is. Added wx.HyperlinkCtrl. Added battery and power related functions and events (wxMSW only so far.) See wx.PowerEvent, wx.GetPowerType and wx.GetBatteryState. Added wx.ListCtrl.HitTestSubItem which returns the sub-item (i.e. the column in report mode) that was hit (if any) in addition to the item and flags. Added wrappers for wx.ColourPickerCtrl, wx.DirPickerCtrl, wx.FilePickerCtrl, and wx.FontPickerCtrl. Patch #1502016 wx.Image.ConvertToGreyscale now retains the alpha channel. Added wrappers for the wxAUI classes, in the wx.aui module. Added the PseudoDC class from Paul Lanier. It provides a way to record operations on a DC and then play them back later. Upgraded to Scintilla 1.70 for wx.stc.StyledTextCtrl. Added CanSetTransparent and SetTransparent methods to the wx.TopLevelWindow class, with implementations (so far) for wxMSW and wxMac. SetDefaultItem() and GetDefaultItem() are now members of wx.TopLevelWindow, not wx.Panel. wxGTK: Stock items (icons) will be used for menu items with stock IDs. Added wx.lib.combotreebox from Frank Niessink Added wx.ImageFromBuffer, wx.BitmapFromBuffer and wx.BitmapFromBufferRGBA factory functions. They enable loading of an image or bitmap directly from a Python object that implements the buffer interface, such as strings, arrays, etc. Added wx.App.IsDisplayAvailable() which can be used to determine if a GUI can be created in the current environment. (Still need an implementation for wxMSW...) The wx.html.HTML_FONT_SIZE_x constants are no longer available as the default sizes are now calculated at runtime based on the size of the normal GUI font. wx.Colour now includes an alpha component, which defaults to wx.ALPHA_OPAQUE. This is in preparation for allowing various new alpha blening functionality using wx.Colour objects, such as drawing with pens and brushes on a wx.DC. Added wx.NativePixelBuffer, wx.AlphPixelBuffer and related iterator and accessor classes. They allow platform independent direct access to the platform specific pixel buffer inside of a wx.Bitmap object. The beginnings of support for RTL languages has been added, thanks to a Google SoC project. Added wx.lib.dragscroller from Riaan Booysen. It provides a helper class that can used to scroll a wx.ScrolledWindow in response to a mouse drag. Applied patch 1551409: Adds support for indeterminate mode gauges. wxMac: I've turned on the compile option for using the native toolbar on the Mac now that it supports hosting of controls. If the toolbar is managed by the frame via either CreateToolBar() or SetToolBar() then the native toolbar will be used. Additional toolbars, or toolbars that are not children of the frame, are managed by sizers or what-not will still use the emulated toolbar because of platform restrictions in how/where the native toolbar can be used. Added Python properties for many of the getter/setter methods of wx classes. In order for the names to be predicatble for somebody already familiar with wxPython the property names are simply the name of the getter with the "Get" dropped. For example, wx.Window has a property named "Size" that maps to GetSize and SetSize. So far there is only one known name conflict using this naming convention, and that is wx.KeyEvent.KeyCode, however since KeyCode was formerly a compatibility alias for GetKeyCode (and has been for a long time) it was decided to just switch it to a property. If you want to use the method then change your calls to event.KeyCode() to event.GetKeyCode(), otherwise you can use it as a property just by dropping the parentheses. Updated the C++ code for wx.gizmos.TreeListCtrl from the wxCode project. This has resulted in some minor API changes, most of which were worked around in the wrapper code. Added wx.lib.delayedresult from Oliver Schoenborn. Added wx.lib.expando, a multi-line textctrl that exands as more lines are needed. wx.Image.Scale and Rescale methods now take an extra parameter specifying type of method to use for resampling the image. It defaults to the current behavior of just replicating pixels, if wx.IMAGE_QUALITY_HIGH is passed then it uses bicubic and box averaging resampling methods for upsampling and downsampling respectively. Added the wx.lib.buttonpanel module, which is a tweaked version of Andrea Gavana's FancyButtonPanel module. Added the wx.lib.flatnotebook module, from Andrea Gavana. Renamed wx.FutureCall to wx.CallLater so it is named more like wx.CallAfter. wx.FutureCall is now an empty subclass of wx.CallLater for compatibility of older code. Added the wx.lib.customtreectrl module from Andrea Gavana. Added ChangeSelection to wx.BookCtrl (the base class for wx.Notebook and other book controls) that is the same as SetSelection but doesn't send the change events. Added wx.TextCtrl.ChangeValue() which is the same as SetValue() but doesn't send the text changed event. For consistency, all classes having an Ok() method now also have IsOk(), use of the latter form is preferred although the former hasn't been deprecated yet Added the wx.AboutBox() function and wx.AboutDialogInfo class. They provide a way to show a standard About box for the application, which will either be a native dialog or a generic one depending on what info is provided and if it can all be shown with the native dialog. The code in the animate contrib has been moved into the code wxWidgets library, and refactored a bit along the way. For wxPython it still exists in the wx.animate module, but has basically been reduced to two classes, wx.animate.Animation, and wx.animate.AnimationCtrl. You load the animated GIF (and hopefully there will be other supported formats in the near future) in the Animation object, and then give that to the AnimatedCtrl for display. See the demo for an example. There is also still a GIFAnimationCtrl class that provides some level of backwards compatibility with the old implementation. wxMac: The compile option that turns on the use of CoreGraphics (a.k.a Quartz) for wxDC is now turned on by default. This means that all drawing via wxDC is done using the new APIs from apple, instead of the old Quick Draw API. There are, however, a few places where Quartz and wxDC don't fit together very well, mainly the lack of support for logical drawing operations such as XOR, but there is work in progress to provide other ways to do the same sort of thing that will work with Quartz and also on the other platforms. The first parts of a new 2D drawing API has been added with the wx.GraphicsPath and wx.GraphicsContext classes. They wrap GDI+ on Windows, Cairo on wxGTK and CoreGraphics on OS X. They allow path-based drawing with alpha-blending and anti-aliasing, and use a floating point cooridnate system. Currently they can only target drawing to windows, but other wx.DC backends are forthcoming. The APIs may evolve a bit more before they are finalaized with the 2.8 release, but there is enough there now to get a good feel for how things will work. There is also a transitional wx.GCDC class that provides the wx.DC API on top of wx.GraphicsContext. Docs and a demo are still MIA. Added a wx.AutoBufferedPaintDC that is a subclass of wx.PaintDC on platforms that do double buffering by default, and a subclass of wx.BufferedPaintDC on the platforms that don't. You can use this class to help avoid the overhead of buffering when it is not needed. There is also a wx.AutoBufferedPaintDCFactory function that does a little more and actually tests if the window has double-buffering enabled and then decides whether to return a wx.PaintDC or wx.BufferedPaintDC. This uses the new wx.Window.IsDoubleBuffered method. -- Robin Dunn Software Craftsman http://wxPython.org Java give you jitters? Relax with wxPython!