[Pythonmac-SIG] My stab at a new page

[Bob Ippolito]

On Feb 9, 2006, at 12:09 PM, Rodney Somerstein wrote:

> At 8:29 PM -0800 2/8/06, Bill Janssen wrote:
>> I've made up a sample page, at
>> http://bill.janssen.org/new-macpython-page.html.
>>
>> This is the kind of thing I'd like to see replace the page at
>> http://www.python.org/download/download_mac.html.
>
> Bill,
>
> As the sort of somewhat sophisticated novice python developer (how is
> that for a contradiction of terms?) that you folks seem to be
> targeting, I really like this page. It could use a little bit of
> cleaning up, such as possibly describing why to use IDLE, how using a
> newer version of Python can help the user, etc. It is a great start.
>
> I look forward to seeing something as straightforward as this
> replacing the current page.
>
> Now, what I really want to see added is something that explains how I
> can write a program in Python on the Mac and create standalone
> applications that can run on someone else's computer without them
> having to install anything else. The descriptions of packaging for
> Python that I have read here are fairly arcane and not at all
> straightforward for new developers. As much as I like the general
> idea of Python, this is the one thing that seems to make the language
> not ready for end-user applications.
>
> It might seem that this isn't Mac specific. But, since the packaging
> of Python apps on the Mac seems to be different than on other
> platforms, having a link to it from the main page would be a useful
> thing. It could certainly be far down the page rather than right at
> the beginning. Even better would be a discussion of how to move such
> apps to other operating systems as well. Python may be more elegant
> than Java, but I can easily give someone a Java app to run on their
> computer. I'm not confident I could do this for much beyond
> helloworld with Python and expect it to run since there wouldn't
> likely be the libraries that I need.

py2app is the solution for application packaging, and you must use it  
with a third party Python installation (e.g. Python 2.4.1) in order  
to come up with something that's redistributable and robust.  If you  
happen to use the system Python, then you will produce a package that  
only runs on the particular release of Mac OS X that you build it  
with.  In other words, when you or your users upgrade to Mac OS X  
10.5, any system-Python built application bundle will cease to  
function at all.

It is actually not much different than on other platforms.  Many  
py2exe-based setup scripts work identically with py2app if you change  
the import statement.  Mac-specific features of course require Mac- 
specific solutions, but the standard stuff is identical.

There is some minimal documentation: http://undefined.org/python/ 
py2app.html

Any other questions you have can probably be answered by py2exe  
documentation and/or this list.

-bob