From: Bruce S. <Bru...@nc...> - 2013-02-10 06:24:52
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Now available on the download pages at vpython.org is VPython 6.02, the product of a collaboration between Steve Spicklemire and me. This version is based on the cross-platform library wxPython. It has two powerful new features: (1) You can put a VPython 3D display in a window that also has wxPython buttons, sliders, etc. that have a native look and feel on all platforms. See the new example program widgets.py. (We haven't experimented with automatic layout mechanisms provided by wxPython, which may require some revision of the new VPython.) (2) In addition to the existing ways to handle mouse and keyboard events, there are powerful new "callback" mechanisms for handling events. Among much else, this provides a way to catch keyboard release events, which some users have wanted for a long time. Our experience so far is that existing programs will run with VPython 6.02, unless there is an animation loop that does not contain a rate() statement (which is now obligatory), and if you import graph or controls or filedialog you must first import visual or vis. We encourage you to try your programs and provide test cases that do not run properly even after making these two adaptations. There is one known bug with old programs, which is that materials.rough and materials.marble do not display correctly on a Macintosh, and the cause is currently unknown. There is one known bug with new programs, which is that pull-down menus (a new feature made possible thanks to wxPython) do not work on a Macintosh. This problem is partly understood, but there isn't yet a fix for the problem. There is a likely bug on Linux, in that wxPython does not currently report window metrics such as the height of a menu bar. For that reason, at the moment these metrics are hard-coded and are likely to be wrong for some Linux or some window manager on some Linux. Please let us know about your experience in this regard. Bruce Sherwood P.S. At the start of every semester there is a big spike in VPython installer downloads due to the start of classes in which VPython is used. Last month there were about 10,000 downloads, and there were considerable charges for excess data transfer from the vpython.org web site. For that reason, the installers have been moved to sourceforge.net, which provides free downloads for open-source projects like VPython. |