[Pythonmac-SIG] Beginner's questions

Konrad Hinsen hinsen at cnrs-orleans.fr
Thu Dec 25 14:00:25 EST 2003


I am currently explorint my brand-new iBook, which of course includes 
installing Python on it. I already have the fink version, but MacPython 
looks interesting as well, so I installed the add-on package to the 
installation provided by Apple. Here's my first round of problems, 
hopefully not standard ones (I did scan the archives a bit, but with 
only a modem connection it isn't much fun).

1) My iBook runs MacOS 10.3.2, which apparently translates to Darwin 
7.2.0. The package database for Panther is for 7.0.0, so I always need 
to type (or paste) a longish URL into the package manager. Is there any 
way to tell it to memorize that address? Or could the database managers 
be convinced to add a second URL for the existing database?

2) I installed the tkinter module plus an AquaTk binary distribution. 
When I run a Tk program with that combination from the MacPython IDE, 
nothing happens. Running the same program from the command line makes 
it run in the background (the terminal continues to have the keyboard 
focus), and when I try to bring the window to the front I get an error 
message. Not very usable to say the least...

3) MacPython does have distutils, so I thought I could install some 
additional packages. I didn't get very far: the first package I tried 
needs the NumPy header files, which are not part of the NumPy package 
(binary) that I installed through the package manager. Bug or feature?

I do like the MacPython IDE, and the Python manuals in the help system 
are nice as well. Time will tell if I will finally accept something 
else than Emacs for Python development ;-)

Konrad.




More information about the Pythonmac-SIG mailing list