GUIs - A Modest Proposal

[Michael Torrie]

On 06/05/2010 08:22 PM, ant wrote:
> WxPython and PyGtk are both powerful, but quirky in different ways. 
> PyQt is tied to one platform. And there are dozens more.

In what way is PyQt (or the new PySide bindings) tied to one platform?
PyQt is "native" on Win32, Mac, and Linux.  Would your universal GUI be
any less quirky?

> I ask the group; should we try to create a new GUI for Python, with 
> the following properties?:
> <snip>
> - Comprehensive, for complicated things - Cross-platform
Most GUI toolkits currently are, to some degree or another.  Qt is the
most comprehensive cross-platform toolkit that I know of.  You can
pretty much do any application operation using its API.

> - Looks good (to be defined)
Does that mean it looks native?  Should it be native?  Does not the
Tkinter gui look "good?"

I can think of at least the following reasons why a new universal GUI
for Python will have acceptance issues:
 - stuck with the lowest common denominator of functionality on each
platform if you thunk to native widgets (a la wxWidgets)
 - often look and feel is not quite native even when using native themes
(GTK on windows, for example)
 - if you take the Java Swing approach, you'll look out of place
everywhere, which is kind of where tkinter is now.