wxPython or TKinter?

[Robert Amesz]

Hanna Joo wrote:

> Hi
> 
> I have played with wxPython and Boa contructor. I stayed away from
> TKinter because I was told that since it has run two interpreters,
> it is rather slow. All GUI work is done on a Windows machine.
> 
> wxPython is wonderful and all that, but execution is very slow.

Are you sure it's the wxPython stuff that's slowing your program down? 
The GUI classes themselves are handled by compiled C++ code, and that 
is pretty fast. Even on slower machines that's not likely to be the 
bottleneck.


> I tried py2exe, but 1. output file is huge 

Duh! Py2exe just packs all your files (including the Python interpreter 
and wxPython and other libraries, including .dll's) into a single file 
so the program can be used on machines without Python and used 
libraries. Neat for distribution, not very useful otherwise.


> 2. it is also slow.

Duh2! (See above.)


> I think Tkinter is more mainstream. Are there distinct advantages? Is
> there a way to speed up wxPython?

Somebody benchmarked wxPython and Tkinter a while back in this group, 
and IIRC wxPython was - depending on the benchmark - between 3 and 7 
times faster. So I don't think switching to Tkinter is going to solve 
your speed problem.

One of the differences between wxPython and Tkinter is that the former 
uses native widgets, when possible. This means, for instance, that the 
wxWindows "Open File" dialog will be the familiar Windows dialog when 
the program runs under Windows.


Robert Amesz