[Tutor] Launching a file browser

[Max Noel]

On Apr 1, 2005, at 00:14, Mike Hall wrote:

> On Mar 31, 2005, at 12:21 AM, Max Noel wrote:
>
>>> It's been too long since I used Python on MacOSX, but IIRC you can't 
>>> just run a Python GUI program from the shell. Or something like 
>>> that...you should ask this one on the python-mac SIG mailing list:
>>> http://www.python.org/sigs/pythonmac-sig/
>>>
>>> Kent
>>
>> 	You have to launch your script with pythonw, not with python.
>
> I'm unclear on why a command like webbrowser.open() will comfortably 
> launch your default web browser (in my case Safari), but something as 
> ubiquitous to an OS as a file browser has special needs to launch. 
> Perhaps each application has custom written their file browser, and 
> I'm assuming they are each essentially doing system calls to the same 
> thing...?

	No, the reason for that, IIRC, is that for the program to be able to 
interact with the window manager, it has to be launched with pythonw. 
When the program starts to display stuff elsewhere than in STDOUT or 
STDERR, an application launch is somehow triggered (icon appears in the 
Dock), which for some reason enables the user to interact with the 
program.
	Launching a web browser requires no interaction whatsoever with the 
WM, and can therefore be done with python.

	Yes, the python/pythonw distinction in Mac OS X is stupid, I'll give 
you that. I don't even know why it exists in the first place.

-- Max
maxnoel_fr at yahoo dot fr -- ICQ #85274019
"Look at you hacker... A pathetic creature of meat and bone, panting 
and sweating as you run through my corridors... How can you challenge a 
perfect, immortal machine?"