[Pythonmac-SIG] Re: Beginner's questions

[Russell E. Owen]

In article <9929006C-370C-11D8-8A34-000A95AB5F10 at cnrs-orleans.fr>,
 Konrad Hinsen <hinsen at cnrs-orleans.fr> wrote:

> 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?

I don't know of any (though I hope somebody else does). Package Manager 
is still very new and has a few rough edges.

> 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...

>From terminal, use the "pythonw" command (note the "w"). You'll have to 
do this for wxPython as well. I do not know of any way of doing the 
right thing from a "#!" line.

This is one good reason to also have a fink python or other X11/unix 
python around. Another good reason is that aqua tk has some cosmetic 
bugs.

The need for "pythonw" to run GUI scripts means it's easy to have both 
x11 and aqua pythons available at the same time. Simply set it up so 
that "python" runs the x11-based python and let "pythonw" run MacPython 
as usual and you're golden.

> 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?

If this is so, I'm surprised and I cannot help. But let me check one 
thing. I doubt this is the issue, but are you sure the correct python is 
being run for setup.py (MacPython and not your fink python)?

Welcome aboard!

-- Russell