[Pythonmac-SIG] Opening an app from another app under different OS X versions

[David Woods]

My wxPython application has a context sensitive help system, using
wx.html.HtmlHelpController(), which also contains a Tutorial for the
program.  Users like to leave the Help window open while they are
simultaneously working in the application.  To allow this, I set the Help
application up as a free-standing application that I can call from my
regular application when it is needed.  (This is necessary because of issues
with menu construction.)  My applications are built using py2app, so the
call I've been using looks like this:

            os.system('open -a TransanaHelp.app')

This works on OS X 10.3, and it works when I'm running under Python on OS X
10.4, but I have not been able to get anything along these lines to work
under OS X 10.4 once my app has been bundled up with py2app.  It's like the
Help app tries to launch, but then it immediately, and silently, shuts down.
(i.e. the Console doesn't report anything.)  os.spawnv() and
os.popen2() don't work either.  Does anybody have any ideas for how I can
launch a bundled wxPython app from within another bundled wxPython app on OS
X 10.4?

Thanks for your help,

David K. Woods, Ph.D.
Transana Lead Developer
Wisconsin Center for Education Research
University of Wisconsin, Madison
http://www.transana.org