[Pythonmac-SIG] cross platform GUI?

[Russell E Owen]

>So, in your collective experience, is tk actually useable to create decent
>Mac applications that are also decent Windows applications?  I'd like to be
>able to use wxpython or tk and also pygame (http://pygame.seul.org/) but I'd
>like to target both Mac (OS9 and OSX) and Windows at the same time.  How do
>you accomplish that?

Tk on the Mac works fine in many ways, but does have some serious limitations:
- I haven't been able to get menus to work reliably (under Tk or 
Tkinter), so I stick with the default ones. I'd love to know if 
anyone else has this problem or it's just me.
- You can forget networked Tk applications on the Mac, as file events 
are broken there.
- Development is somewhat painful on the Mac (by comparison, say, to 
unix) as you have to run scripts in PythonInterpreter, and editor 
integration doesn't seem to be there.
- Tk applications seem to rather take over the Mac, leaving little 
time for background tasks. I'm not sure if this can be avoided 
somehow.
- Also, cosmetically, standard frame decorations such as ridge and 
groove look fairly unconvincing on the Mac.

But a lot of Tkinter does work. I've had no stability problems aside 
from menus. Windows and widgets (except menus) all work as they 
should.

If you need something now for the Mac, perhaps you should consider a 
unix version of wxPython or Tkinter under Mac OS X (any opinions on 
that? Would it feel at all mac-like to a regular mac user?).

I've not used wxPython or pygame. wxPython doesn't run on the Mac 
(though Mac support for wxWindows seems to be coming along, so maybe 
someday...). I've also not coded for Windows, but my Tk apps run just 
fine under unix and Mac (except the networked stuff on Mac).

-- Russell