ANN: wxPython 2.8.9.2 release

[Robin Dunn]

The wxWidgets team is in the early stages of preparing for a 2.8.10
release, but I already had a set of 2.8.9.2 release candidate files
that I made a few days ago.  Since it's still possible that there
could be delays in the 2.8.10 release I thought that it would be nice
to go ahead and release the 2.8.9.2 binaries.  So...


Announcing
----------

The 2.8.9.2 release of wxPython is now available for download at
http://wxpython.org/download.php.  This release adds the wx.lib.agw
package, adds an event watcher to the widget inspection tool, and
fixes a bunch of bugs.  A summary of changes is listed below and also
at http://wxpython.org/recentchanges.php.

Source code is available as a tarball and a source RPM, as well as
binaries for Python 2.4, 2.5 and 2.6[1], for Windows and Mac, as well
some packages for various Linux distributions.


[1] If installing the Python 2.6 version of wxPython on 64-bit XP or
Vista then please read the README presented by the installer for
instructions on how to enable the themed controls.  (If anybody has a
better solution for this please let Robin know.)



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 and 64-bit Microsoft Windows,
most Linux or other Unix-like systems using GTK2, and Mac OS X 10.4+.
In most cases the native widgets are used on each platform to provide
a 100% native look and feel for the application.



Changes in 2.8.9.2
------------------

Added the wx.lib.agw package, which contiains most of the widgets from
http://xoomer.alice.it/infinity77/main/freeware.html written by Andrea
Gavana.  Andrea's widgets that were already in wx.lib were also moved
to the wx.lib.agw package, with a small stub module left in wx.lib.
As part of this addition the demo framework was given the ability to
load demo modules from a sub-folder of the demo directory, to make it
easier to maintain collections of demo samples as a group.

Added the wx.PyPickerBase class which can be used to derive new picker
classes in Python.  Used it to implement a color picker for Mac that
uses a wx.BitmapButton instead of a normal wx.Button.  This makes the
color picker look and behave lots better on Mac than before.

You can now pass the handler function to the Unbind method.  If it is
given then Unbind will only disconenct the event handler that uses the
same handler function, so if there are multiple bindings for the same
event type you'll now be able to selectively unbind specific
instances.

Added a new tool to the Widget Inspection Tool that allows you to watch
the events passing through a widget.  It can also be used
independently, see wx.lib.eventwatcher.



-- 
Robin Dunn
Software Craftsman
http://wxPython.org  Java give you jitters?  Relax with wxPython!