Re: [Plplot-devel] Plplot embedded in pyqt + plimage function

[Alan W. I. <ir...@be...>]

On Tue, 30 Oct 2001, Alan W. Irwin wrote:

> Note, example1 is a modification of xw03.py.  Ultimately, this
> should not go into CVS. Instead, I will put my thinking cap on to figure out
> how to make the required changes for all the xw??.py examples so they can be
> run either as scripts (probably called from a main script) or from the GUI.

To the plplot developers (and interested pyqt GUI developers):

I have just figured out what changes have to be made to our xw16.py example
to run it from the pyqt gui for plplot.  I assume these changes will work
for any of our xw??.py examples so that gives Allesandro a ton of examples
to show off.

(1) I have trimmed out everything until the line "def main():" The GUI only
needs main() (or whatever you want to call it) defined and does not need all
these preliminary imports.

(2) Remove the plParseOpts, plinit and plend commands within main.
The first is irrelevant, the second works, but bypasses the GUI, and the
third makes it impossible to re-run the example from the GUI.

With the above two changes, the modified xw16.py result looks good when
displayed by the GUI with one exception.  In the current primitive state of
the GUI there is no page control so all the pages run through without
stopping.  I assume page control is something that Allesandro will want to
address with high priority.

BTW, all these pages are built and displayed so rapidly that you can just
barely see them until the last one displays.  This is a reflection of the
building efficiency of Numeric and the display efficiency of pyqt and libqt.

But don't take my word for it.  See for yourself with any of our xw??.py
examples (after you make the recommend changes to your local copies
of xw??.py).

*******************

I would now like to move on to a related issue: how to organize the python
examples for the *non-GUI* case.  What I am thinking of is making the above
two changes for all the xw??.py examples, and renaming main in each case to
the appropriate name of the example (x01, etc).  Then I would create an
overall examples script called pythondemos.py which does the preliminary
required imports once (including all the examples), executes plParseOpts and
plinit once, executes all examples as python modules, then executes plend. I
also would do the necessary reconfiguration to make this new approach work
smoothly. This python module approach would make our python examples much
less cluttered for non-GUI testing.  Also, it makes the examples much easier
to work with for the current pyqt GUI case and potentially for a native
Tkinter GUI case.

Comments, please? Unless there are objections I plan to go ahead with this
reorganization fairly soon.

Alan