[Pythonmac-SIG] Re: wxPython the perfect GUI toolkit on mac os x?

[Russell E. Owen]

In article <07dc01c39f64$75ca3d00$a800000a at Odyssey.local>,
 "leo" <halloleo at myrealbox.com> wrote:

> hi there
> 
> on my mac i want to built small to medium GUI apps with python:
> 
> i) what's the best toolkit: tkinter, wxPython or what? stability, ease of
> use
> 
> and runtime portability between mac and windows are the main criteria.
> 
> ii) i asked this question in comp.lang.python before and it looked like
> wxPython is the generally recommendation. but does wxPython works on os x?
> and where do i get the wxWindows lib for macs?

I've been using Tkinter. It's very easy to use, powerful and very 
flexible, but it's not perfect. In particular:
- The aqua version of Tk has a number of minor cosmetic bugs; the X 
version is fine but results in a less Mac-like application -- especially 
the handling of menus and cut and paste (plus Apple's X11 has a few 
cosmetic bugs of its own, at least in the version that runs on Jaguar).
- The defaults for the Windows version of Tk are apparently not very 
nice; you'll want to change them for a Windows-like appearance.
- No multi-column-list widget (though PMW offers something in this line).

When I looked at wxPython, I was unhappy with the extra complexity (for 
instance needing to specify magic integer constants to access menu 
items). Also, at the time it was lacking some things such as a powerful 
Canvas widget (though it has apparently has a nice multi-column list 
widget). That was awhile ago and maybe canvases are better now.

Certainly I have read several reports from folks who switched from 
Tkinter to wxPython, and after the initial learning curve were quite 
glad they did.

-- Russell