[IPython-dev] [IPython-user] IPython development news and prospects

[Laurent Dufréchou]

Hi ipythoners,

Warning long mail... which main subject is GUI with ipython

***************** GUI integration ************************
Just some thought on Ipython GUI integration:

I've worked a little on one of the implementation of Ipython GUI integration
inside WX.
I've just discovered a big problem of my current implementation: I'm
creating an Ipython instance inside a thread and send it some line to
interpret.
The good thing is that the thread class is GUI toolkit independent --> good
The bad point is that prabhu asked me if it was possible to let say call
ipython with -wthread or -qthread.
(which is a good idea for example to develop a QTapp with wxIpython ^_^)
It seems that it is not possible or hard to do.(not tried a lot but from
I've seen...).

So my question is: 

Many people seems to be interested in GUI frontend for ipython, don't you
think it could be interesting to create a process whis a ipython instance
inside (the same as the wxIpython thread class in fact) and The GUI
wx,QT,everything else discuss with it via a network protocol like xml-rpc.
(I'm not software programmer so sure you will have better idea for
communication protocol:), I said xml-rpc because it's a base module of
python)

So the Gui part will only manage user interaction and will make ipython
process core execute line, get history and so on.
>From what I've seen from now the interace only needs a few function to
support ipython features (history,magic,tab_completion...)
This also could be reused with ipython1 later as the GUI interface will not
change only how we manage ipython1 inside the process
(well perhaps it's more tricky :) )

********************* QT4 **********************************************
For license question check pyqwt also, they've got a license section that
try to explain the problem.
http://pyqwt.sourceforge.net/license.html

What is interesting is that to have code that is not 'contamined' by gpl it
seems that we have to use exec to be OK with the license.
If anybody can confirm...
So it raise the interest of having an ipython interpreter in a separate
process... :)

By the way QT4 is a good idea, from what I've seen of WX there is some
multiplatform problem, and widget doesn't always react the same way. If we
could also use scintilla it could be good too because it is ported to
wx,QT,GTK and work on a lot of platform...
(it's only a suggestion), So perhaps it will be possible to share code...?

********** OLPC *****************
Hey for GTK question, I've recently tried PIDA under linux (too hard to
install on windows).
They've got a command shell in a process inside a gtk window, and if you
type in: ipython -wthread, well you've an ipython shell inside a gui that
support wx!(well no interaction with pida possible but well it's a good
start!).
That why I thought about the process thing...
So, perhaps if you speak with pida guys you can have an ipython gui + python
dev env for the olpc for nothing ;)
 
************** IGRID *****************
Can you tell me more about igrid?


Any comments, idea welcome!

Cheers,
Laurent