> > What "GUI designer" would come the closest to the way that Cocoa's > > Interface Builder works? I.e. is there any one (cross-platform) that > > allows to actually "connect" the GUI created directly to the code > > and make it available "live" in an IDE? > > > > This whole cycle of "design GUI"->"generate code"->add own code to > > generated code"->"run application with GUI" has always seemed very > > un-pythonic to me. A dynamic, interpreted language should allow to > > work in a more "lively", "direct" way to build a GUI. > > I'm curious about your point but I don't really understand it. Could > you try again without using any scare-quoted words?
myidea.explanation.retry() Python has this insanely great thing that e.g. Delphi, Java, C#, Visual Basic, etc. lack and that's called an interactive commandline interpreter, which allows you to build GUIs while exploring/trying out the API of a GUI framework step by step. You simply type the code for the GUI at the python prompt and your GUI comes directly to life. Here's an example by someone else: http://pysnippet.blogspot.de/2010/11/getting-interactive-with-pyqt.html Now "just" (sorry for those quotes again) imagine a GUI builder that generates _and_ _runs_ the code (pyqt, wxpython, pygtk, whatever) for the GUI you edit _while_ you do so. And now imagine that this GUI builder would be integrated with the IDE you use (I use one), so that the GUI code is run in the same interpreter instance as the other code of your application. So that you can directly interact with your application through the GUI you build while you do so. The advantage of using a GUI builder over typing the code into the interpreter window would be that users who rarely implement a GUI(*) would not need to re-dig into the details of the API every time. This is especially tedious since those APIs are essentially C++ APIs wrapped in Python and thus they are honestly simply §$%&@# to use for a certain type of Python user(*). And the lack of Python-specific documentation, tutorials etc. doesn't really help. Did I mention yet that just having to read C++ example code in documentation makes me spill my last meal over keyboard, screen etc.? Of course there's PyGUI, but that's unfortunately far from being as complete as PyQt or wxPython and unless someone creates something like an equivalent of Apache Software Foundation for Python, declares PyGUI as the canonical Python GUI framework and funds the work needed to complete it... And then you still need a GUI builder for it. *sigh* > Maybe given an example of creating a small text editor application > with a GUI builder/ IDE in this Pythonic way you are hoping for. I'm not into text editors as example applications since I don't develop text editors, I rarely even use one. And besides, I don't think any typical user(*) of such a GUI builder would ever implement a text editor in his whole life. Personally, my typical use of such a GUI builder would be for database applications. Which make up, according to my experience, for at least 90% of all custom-built applications in companies. Today, these applications have to be made by external, paid developers who have typically no clue of the application domain in question. Consequently, the applications, no matter how many pages of detailed specifications you as the domain expert write, never do what you wanted them to do. Although just writing the specification takes more time than it would take to implement it myself if only the (GUI) tools and (GUI) frameworks(**) for Python would be at the level required to make them useful for such "developers" as me(*). And did I mention that the cost of external developers (plus the overhead cost for interaction with them) makes them prohibitive anyway? And did I mention that the time required such external development (plus the overhead time for interaction with the external developers) takes doesn't help either? * Such as "casual" Python scripting dilettants who are not full-time software developers but domain experts who just use Python to help get their main work done. ** In my case of database applications, something like this: http://www.nakedobjects.org/book/ http://www.nakedobjects.org/downloads/Pawson%20thesis.pdf Sincerely, Wolfgang -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
