Good grid + calendar, etc.?

[Fuzzyman]

On Jun 1, 1:43 pm, Gilles Ganault <nos... at nospam.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 1 Jun 2008 21:27:30 +0900, "Ryan Ginstrom"
>
> <softw... at ginstrom.com> wrote:
> >For your stated needs, I'd advise checking out IronPython or Python.NET
> >(which allow use of .NET GUI libraries).
>
> Thanks but I forgot to say that I'd rather not use .Net because
> deployment/updates are too problematic for our audience.
>
> .. that's assuming that a GUI Python can install/update itself as
> easily as eg. Delphi, which is where I could be wrong :-/

Windows Forms (.NET) is one of the best looking Windows GUI toolkits
I've seen. It is also generally very easy to use from IronPython.

We haven't had a problem with deployment / updates with our customers
[1]. Problems you anticipate may be historical. .NET 2 has been pushed
out by Windows update for quite some time and it is *likely* that your
target computers already have it installed.

Further, the latest release of .NET (.NET 3.5 SP1 - still be in Beta)
includes tools for building 'msi' installers which either bundle the
parts of .NET you need - or handle the download and install of .NET on
the client machine (which approach you take is up to you - and
obviously they *don't* depend on having .NET already installed on the
target machine).

You can see some of the details on Scott Guthrie's blog:

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2008/05/12/visual-studio-2008-and-net-framework-3-5-service-pack-1-beta.aspx

Scroll down to the parts about ".NET Framework Client Profile Setup
Package":

.NET 3.5 SP1 introduces a new setup package option for developers
building .NET client applications called the ".NET Framework Client
Profile".  This provides a new setup installer that enables a smaller,
faster, and simpler installation experience for .NET client
applications on machines that do not already have the .NET Framework
installed.

And also ".NET Framework Setup Bootstrapper for Client Applications":

.NET 3.5 SP1 introduces a new "bootstrapper" component that you can
use with client applications to help automate making sure that the
right version of the .NET Framework is installed. The bootstrapper
component can handle automatically downloading and installing either
the .NET Framework Client Profile or the full .NET Framework Setup
Package from the Internet if your machine doesn't have either of them
installed.  The boostrapper can also automatically handle upgrading
machines that have a previous version of the .NET Framework
installed.

All the best,


Michael Foord
http://www.ironpythoninaction.com/


[1] At Resolver Systems: http://www.resolversystems.com/