wxPython 2.8 Application Development Cookbook

wxPython 2.8 Application Development Cookbook

By : Cody Precord

Buy this Book

wxPython 2.8 Application Development Cookbook

By: Cody Precord

Buy this Book

Overview of this book

In today’s world of desktop applications there is a great amount of incentive to be able to develop applications that can run in more than one environment. Currently there are a handful of options available for cross platform frameworks to develop desktop applications in Python. wxPython is one such cross- platform GUI toolkit for the Python programming language. It allows Python programmers to create programs with a complete, highly functional graphical user interface, simply and easily. wxPython code style has changed quite a bit over the years, and gotten much more Pythonic. The examples you will find in this book are right up to date and reflect this change in style. This cookbook provides you with the latest recipes to quickly create robust, reliable, and reusable wxPython applications. These recipes will guide you from writing simple, basic wxPython scripts all the way through complex concepts, and also feature various design approaches and techniques in wxPython. The book starts off by covering a variety of topics from the most basic requirements of a wxPython application to some of the more in depth details of the inner workings of the framework laying the foundation for any wxPython application. It then explains event handling, basic and advanced user interface controls, designing and layout, creating dialogs, components and extending functionality, and so on. We conclude by learning how to build and manage applications for distribution. For each of the recipes, there is an introductory example, then more advanced examples, and plenty of example code to develop and manage user-friendly applications. For more experienced developers, most recipes also include additional discussion of the solution, allowing you to further customize and enhance the component.

wxPython 2.8 Application Development Cookbook

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewers

www.PacktPub.com

Preface

Free Chapter

Getting Started with wxPython

Introduction

The application object

The main frame

Understanding the window hierarchy

Referencing controls

Using Bitmaps

Adding icons to Windows

Utilizing Stock IDs

Accessing the clipboard

Supporting drag and drop

Two-stage widget creation

Understanding inheritance limitations

Responding to Events

Introduction

Handling events

Understanding event propagation

Handling Key events

Using UpdateUI events

Playing with the mouse

Creating custom event classes

Managing event handlers with EventStack

Validating input with validators

Handling Apple events

Basic Building Blocks of a User Interface

Introduction

Creating Stock Buttons

Buttons, buttons, and more buttons

Offering options with CheckBoxes

Using the TextCtrl

Providing choices with the Choice control

Adding Menus and MenuBars

Working with ToolBars

How to use PopupMenus

Grouping controls with a StaticBox

Advanced Building Blocks of a User Interface

Introduction

Listing data with a ListCtrl

Browsing files with the CustomTreeCtrl

Creating a VListBox

StyledTextCtrl using lexers

Working with tray icons

Adding tabs to a Notebook

Using the FlatNotebook

Scrolling with a ScrolledPanel

Simplifying the FoldPanelBar

Providing Information and Alerting Users

Introduction

Showing a MessageBox

Providing help with ToolTips

Using SuperToolTips

Displaying a BalloonTip

Creating a custom SplashScreen

Showing task progress with the Progress dialog

Creating an AboutBox

Retrieving Information from Users

Introduction

Selecting files with a FileDialog

Searching text with a FindReplaceDialog

Getting images with ImageDialog

Using the Print dialogs

Window Layout and Design

Introduction

Using a BoxSizer

Understanding proportions, flags, and borders

Laying out controls with the GridBagSizer

Standard dialog button layout

Using XML resources

Making a custom resource handler

Using the AuiFrameManager

Drawing to the Screen

Introduction

Screen drawing

Drawing shapes

Utilizing SystemSettings

Using a GraphicsContext

Drawing with RendererNative

Reducing flicker in drawing routines

Design Approaches and Techniques

Introduction

Creating Singletons

Implementing an observer pattern

Strategy pattern

Model View Controller

Using mixin classes

Using decorators

Creating Components and Extending Functionality

Introduction

Customizing the ArtProvider

Adding controls to a StatusBar

Making a tool window

Creating a SearchBar

Working with ListCtrl mixins

StyledTextCtrl custom highlighting

Creating a custom control

Using Threads and Timers to Create Responsive Interfaces

Introduction

Non-Blocking GUI

Understanding thread safety

Threading tools

Using Timers

Capturing output

Building and Managing Applications for Distribution

Introduction

Working with StandardPaths

Persisting the state of the UI

Using the SingleInstanceChecker

Exception handling

Optimizing for OS X

Supporting internationalization

Distributing an application

Index

Customer Reviews

5 star

4 star

3 star

2 star

1 star

Two-stage widget creation

Two-stage widget creation is a way of initialzing a widget and then its UI part, in two steps. This method of object creation is used by class factories such as XRC (XML Resource) and to set extra style flags that cannot be set by using the constructor's regular style parameter. This recipe will show how to use two-stage creations to create a frame that has a special button that can be used to put it into a context-sensitive help mode.

Note

This is a Windows-specific example; other platforms do not support having a ContextButton in their title bar.

How to do it...

Here we will create a Frame subclass that uses two stage creation in order to set an extra style flag:

class MyFrame(wx.Frame):
    def __init__(self, parent, *args, **kwargs):
        pre = wx.PreFrame()
        pre.SetExtraStyle(wx.FRAME_EX_CONTEXTHELP)
        pre.Create(parent, *args, **kwargs)
        self.PostCreate(pre

How it works..

In wxPython, two-stage widget creation is actually a three-step process. First, each class that supports it has its own PreClass that is used as a factory constructor that pre-creates the object. At this point, the pre object can be used to set the extra style flag. The next step is to call Create. Create acts like the regular constructor and creates the UI portion of the control. The final step is to call PostCreate, PostCreate does the work of translating the pre object into self so that the object will appear just as if the class's __init__ method had been called normal.

wxPython 2.8 Application Development Cookbook

By : Cody Precord

wxPython 2.8 Application Development Cookbook

By: Cody Precord

Overview of this book

Related Content you might be interested in

Current Title:

wxPython 2.8 Application Development Cookbook

Two-stage widget creation

Note

How to do it...

How it works..

See also