wxWidgets and wxPython in Chandler

WxWidgets is an open-source framework for cross-platform development, including GUIs, threads, sockets, database and file system access.

WxPython is a Python implementation of wxWidgets. Because wxWidgets is written in C++/C and wxPython is a Python wrapper over that, there are some differences in the API. Most notably, you can pass-by-reference in wxWidgets but not in wxPython.

Chandler uses wxPython for its GUI framework. It was chosen because it builds upon the native operating system's widgets. This means that regardless of whether you're running on Windows, MacOS X or Unix, Chandler will share the basic look and feel of native applications.

This strategy has the disadvantage that Chandler will look and act slightly differently on different platforms. The Chandler team believes that very few people use multiple operating systems, and so believes cross-platform incompatibilities were okay.

External references

Unfortunately, there aren't really great resources for learning wxPython. Most of the relevant docs are actually official wxWidgets and wxPython docs.

• wxPython class browser (though without the "wx" at the beginning of the names because that's going away)
• wxPython manual

• How to learn wxPython doc
• TuCow's wxPython Challenge1 tutorial and wxPython stdout/stderr Window and MessageDialogs^? tutorial

• wxWidgets tutorial (in HTML, PDF, and Word formats)
• wxWidgets, especially wxWidgets manual (Microsoft CHM version of the manual)

• wxWidgets command events
• XRC

Mailing list messages:

• John Anderson discusses why wxPython was chosen.
• Native Platform Integration Curt Hibbs (quoting Sean Russell)

External WxWidgets information:

• http://www.wxwidgets.org/
• http://sourceforge.net/projects/wxwidgets
• http://wxguide.sourceforge.net/ and -- guidelines for cross-platform wxWidgets development (and a list of conformant projects)

-- DuckySherwood - 10 Dec 2002