[Tutor] Database questions

Bill Burns billburns at pennswoods.net
Sat Nov 27 03:41:06 CET 2004


On Tuesday 23 November 2004 7:56 pm, Jay Mutter wrote:
> Good evening;
> I am using OS X 10.3.6 on an ibook where I have python 2.3.3 and
> wxPython 2.5.3.1 installed with mxDateTime, Postgresql and psycopg.
>
> What i would like to know ( remember I have not really started using
> python or any of the others) is what would you suggest as a GUI
> designer to work with the above for someone who wants to develop a GUI
> client interface for a RDBMS system.  I have looked at wxGlade,
> Pythoncard, wxDesigner, and Boa constructor and am currently clueless.
> If I wanted to hone my skills by creating a GUI checkbook
> register/balancing program would I be best off to simply use the DB
> modules built into Python.
> Remember I am definitely a newbie.
>

Warning, the following doesn't meet all of your criteria, but if that doesn't
bother you, keep reading :-)

Have you looked at Qt Designer + PyQt? This solution is not "wx" based 
(which I think is the only criteria it doesn't meet) but it should provide
everything else you want, i.e., OS X, works with databases and easy to
use.

I don't use OS X but I do use these programs (on Linux) and they are very
newbie friendly. I'm also a fellow n00b :-) and believe me, with Qt, it's very
simple and fast to make a nice GUI.

Using Qt Designer, you can visually design a GUI without "hand coding" a
thing.  You literally just drop widgets, which are all accessible on the
left-hand side of Designer, right on to your forms. After you've created the
UI, you use a tool called pyuic (python user interface compiler) to compile it
to python code. You can either make this code directly executable or import
it into your own module.

If you have access to a Linux box (with a modern distro) try typing "designer"
(without the quotes) at a command prompt. Maybe you can at least look at the
GUI builder and get a feel for it.

You'll have to look at the licensing or distribution restrictions if you want
to distribute this app on Windows. I really don't know all of the restrictions
but I think if you're developing for just OS X or Linux you should have no
concerns. There are definitely issues when it comes to using Qt and PyQt
on the Windows platform. Look in to this, it's probably the single biggest
reason why Designer & PyQt are not suggested more often. Even so,
these are outstanding tools. The Qt docs are full of information and even-
though they apply to C++, it's not hard to understand them and translate
the info into Python. 

Here's some links you might want to check out:
 
Info & download link for the gpl'ed version of QT for Mac:
http://www.trolltech.com/download/qt/mac.html

Subscribe to and/or search the PyKDE mailing list (this list is for both PyKDE
& PyQt):
http://mats.imk.fraunhofer.de/mailman/listinfo/pykde

Main web site for PyQt:
http://www.riverbankcomputing.co.uk/pyqt/index.php

An excellent site for info about PyQt programming:
http://www.opendocspublishing.com/pyqt/index.lxp

eric3 - A Python IDE
http://www.die-offenbachs.de/detlev/eric3.html

Black Adder - a commercial IDE:
http://www.thekompany.com/

HTH

Bill






 


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