[Pythoncard-users] FW: PythonCard response to Chris Ryland

[Kevin A. <al...@se...>]

This may be of general interest for those relatively new to the PythonCard
project. Hopefully, I didn't say anything too stupid below, I'm in a rush to
get out the door and just typed and sent rather than double-checking first
:)

ka

-----Original Message-----
From: Kevin Altis [mailto:al...@se...]
Sent: Monday, October 15, 2001 7:11 PM
To: Chris Ryland
Subject: RE: PythonCard


Yes, please check it out. Right now we have an app framework with various
runtime tools, but not a complete environment. The samples are typically
analagous to a single background, single card stack, but without transparent
data storage. We will have stacks (groupings of backgrounds) and cards
(records) of some form as we progress. However, there is no particular
reason you have to use that, so it can work like a "normal" app.

I can't give you a specific date on the Mac wxPython, but that is what we're
waiting on. wxMac (wxWindows) seems to be pretty far along, but Robin hasn't
committed to a wxPython port for the Mac other than Real Soon Now. Once we
have a Mac version, I'm sure various framework issues will pop up. One of
the biggest right now is that fixed layouts generally don't work well under
Linux, so we're investigating sizers.

There is a py2exe that can probably produce a standalone for Windows, but I
don't think anyone has tried. It does work for wxPython on its own. There is
another bundler that works for Linux, but not as well. I have no idea about
the Mac.

What we've discussed so far leans towards having a .zip bundle more like a
Java .jar/.war file, but no work has been done on that yet and it wouldn't
address your desire to have something that bundles Python/wxPython/etc. it
would only be for an individual PythonCard app.

wxDesigner is a bigger beast. There is also Boa. Both generate wx code,
wxPython would be your preferred output. PythonCard sits on top of wxPython,
so it requires different code, though you can mingle wxPython code inside a
PythonCard app, which is typically how new features are tested before being
made part of the framework. Numerous samples have wxPython code in them. The
only layout tool right now is the resourceEditor sample, which is very weak
since I've only spent a few days on it total.

However, you should still be able to do simple apps fairly quickly even with
the limited UI tools we have today. Lack of documenation is another issue.
For the most part you'll need to program by example, looking at the existing
samples, plus the spec.py and widget.py modules.

Please join the list and contribute ideas and criticisms.

ka

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chris Ryland [mailto:cp...@em...]
> Sent: Monday, October 15, 2001 6:24 PM
> To: al...@se...
> Subject: PythonCard
>
>
> Very interesting. You're not going down the true Hypercard "stack" path,
> though are you? (I hope not.)
>
> Just how close is the Mac version? All hinging on wxWindows for Mac?
>
> And how hard would it be to produce a "frozen" executable with Python,
> PythonCard & all resources wrapped into one file for MacOS 8/9?
>
> I'm not looking for automatic code generation (though skeleton code
> generation is helpful where appropriate), just something that makes GUI
> design/development swift and accurate. (RealBasic does well here.)
>
> How does your stuff compare to wxDesigner, which looks fairly interesting?
>
> I guess there's not much more to do than just dive in and try to
> start using
> it all...
> --
> Cheers!
> Chris Ryland
> Em Software, Inc.
> www.emsoftware.com
>
>
>