[Tutor] A few very basic questions

[Alan Gauld]

"M Tramp" <mysterytramp at yahoo.com> wrote

> I've started trying ot learn about Python because ... Gramps, a 
> genealogical
> To run Gramps on a Mac, I need to get GTK up and running.

Have you checked fink? There's a MacOS Gimp toolkit package available.
(Well 3 actually, gtk, gtk-data and gtk-shlibs) I generally use fink 
rather than
try apt-get because I know the fink stuff is tested against MacOS. And fink
packages are pre-built usually...

> (FYI, I have a Mac, running OS X 10.4.11. Xcode 2.5)

> 1) GTK has several dependencies, according to 
> http://library.gnome.org/devel/gtk-faq/stable/c192.html
> ... pkg-config; GNU make; JPEG, PNG and TIFF image libraries;

These should all be in place already

> FreeType; fontconfig; GNU libiconv library; GNU gettext; GLib; Pango; 
> ATK.

Not so sure about these though.

> Each of these may have dependencies as well. Is there someplace to
> go to figure out the order they should be compiled?

apt-get should sort most of that out for you, it checks depemdencies and
dependencies on dependencies etc. And if they are apt-get packages
they should be either pre bu8ilt or apt-get should initiate the builds for
you (I think, its been a while since I used it!)

> 2) Once each library is compiled, what should I have and where
> should it be on my hard drive?

Using make (either directly or via apt-get) should sort that out.

> For example, when Python sees "import gtk" in which directory is
> it looking for GTK?

Thats a different question because you need pygtk too and Python
looks for the pygtk file which in turn looks for the real gtk library...
And that should be a standard place that make knows about.

> How will GTK and the other libraries appear on my hard disk?
> As Unix executables or as frameworks or as something else entirely?

In normal Unix it would be as libraries but under MacOS its
entirely possible they show up as a Framework...

> 3) I am likely to do my Python programming inside Eclipse using
> pydev, though I have Xcode.

In my experience Eclipse is a better option than XCode unless
you are doing Aqua GUI programming XCode is great for Objective C
but I never liked it for Python.

> The libraries will be in C, correct?

Yes, mostly, some of the pygtk stuff may be in python.

> Will I be able to use Xcode to compile GTK and the rest,
> and then access the libraries inside Eclipse?

You should be able to. You may have to set up some paths in Eclipe's
preferences.

HTH,

-- 
Alan Gauld
Author of the Learn to Program web site
http://www.alan-g.me.uk/