On Aug 6, 9:58 am, "Chris Mellon" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 06 Aug 2007 07:39:12 -0700, Paul Rubin > > > > <"http://phr.cx"@nospam.invalid> wrote: > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > > > I've read that Tkinter doesn't scale well if you're writing complex > > > GUIs. I haven't been able to test this hypothesis though. However, > > > since I had to rewrite VBA apps into Python, to get the right "look > > > and feel" I needed the widgets that wxPython provided. Since I started > > > out with C++, I find wxPython better than Tkinter, but it's all pretty > > > subjective. Try them both! > > > Tkinteger (dang, I always end up typing it that way, I won't even > > bother fixing the error) is easy to use for simple gui's, and it's > > part of the standard python distro which for me is a big advantage (no > > extra crap to download). However, the widget set is rather ugly and > > doesn't blend in well with anyone's native widgets; the widget > > selection itself is rather narrow, and I think kyosohma may be right > > that it doesn't scale well to complex gui's. I've looked at the code > > for IDLE's gui and it's terrifying. > > > At this point I think nobody should write desktop gui apps without a > > good reason. There is a fairly flexible and easy to program gui > > already running on almost every desktop, namely the web browser. > > Before you write a gui using some client side toolkit, ask yourself > > whether you can instead embed a web server in your application and > > write an HTML gui. That approach is not always the answer, but it has > > considerable advantages when you can do it that way. > > Some disadvantages of the web based platform: > > No native look and feel - constrained by the browser. > No control over browser UI idioms. I had to write this post twice > because the text control lost focus and I hit backspace, going back in > the history and losing my work. > No native integration - no "open file", no "browse the filesystem", no > rich drag and drop, no copy/paste. > No or poor dialogs. Poor multiple window support. > More platforms to develop on and test with. > Limited to CSS box model for layout. > > You can mitigate some of these constraints if you *require* the local > web browser technique, rather than supporting local or remote access. > You can mitigate more if you write your own browser host (along the > lines of the dashboard in OS X), but then you get to write 3 > applications instead of one. > > The web is a terrible application platform. There is not a single web > application in existence which has even half the UI functionality of a > rich client application. There are some (even many) applications for > which the benefit of global access and easy deployment makes up for > the lack in functionality, but statements like "At this point I think > nobody should write desktop gui apps without a good reason" are simply > ludicrously misguided.
If you could use Python's antiquated Grail web browser and write plugin applications, then that would be awesome! There are trade offs with anything though. Mike -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
