1 :tocdepth: 2 2 3 ========================== 4 Graphic User Interface FAQ 5 ========================== 6 7 .. only:: html 8 9 .. contents:: 10 11 .. XXX need review for Python 3. 12 13 14 General GUI Questions 15 ===================== 16 17 What platform-independent GUI toolkits exist for Python? 18 ======================================================== 19 20 Depending on what platform(s) you are aiming at, there are several. Some 21 of them haven't been ported to Python 3 yet. At least `Tkinter`_ and `Qt`_ 22 are known to be Python 3-compatible. 23 24 .. XXX check links 25 26 Tkinter 27 ------- 28 29 Standard builds of Python include an object-oriented interface to the Tcl/Tk 30 widget set, called :ref:`tkinter <Tkinter>`. This is probably the easiest to 31 install (since it comes included with most 32 `binary distributions <https://www.python.org/downloads/>`_ of Python) and use. 33 For more info about Tk, including pointers to the source, see the 34 `Tcl/Tk home page <https://www.tcl.tk>`_. Tcl/Tk is fully portable to the 35 Mac OS X, Windows, and Unix platforms. 36 37 wxWidgets 38 --------- 39 40 wxWidgets (https://www.wxwidgets.org) is a free, portable GUI class 41 library written in C++ that provides a native look and feel on a 42 number of platforms, with Windows, Mac OS X, GTK, X11, all listed as 43 current stable targets. Language bindings are available for a number 44 of languages including Python, Perl, Ruby, etc. 45 46 `wxPython <https://www.wxpython.org>`_ is the Python binding for 47 wxwidgets. While it often lags slightly behind the official wxWidgets 48 releases, it also offers a number of features via pure Python 49 extensions that are not available in other language bindings. There 50 is an active wxPython user and developer community. 51 52 Both wxWidgets and wxPython are free, open source, software with 53 permissive licences that allow their use in commercial products as 54 well as in freeware or shareware. 55 56 57 Qt 58 --- 59 60 There are bindings available for the Qt toolkit (using either `PyQt 61 <https://riverbankcomputing.com/software/pyqt/intro>`_ or `PySide 62 <https://wiki.qt.io/PySide>`_) and for KDE (`PyKDE4 <https://techbase.kde.org/Languages/Python/Using_PyKDE_4>`__). 63 PyQt is currently more mature than PySide, but you must buy a PyQt license from 64 `Riverbank Computing <https://www.riverbankcomputing.com/commercial/license-faq>`_ 65 if you want to write proprietary applications. PySide is free for all applications. 66 67 Qt 4.5 upwards is licensed under the LGPL license; also, commercial licenses 68 are available from `The Qt Company <https://www.qt.io/licensing/>`_. 69 70 Gtk+ 71 ---- 72 73 The `GObject introspection bindings <https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/PyGObject>`_ 74 for Python allow you to write GTK+ 3 applications. There is also a 75 `Python GTK+ 3 Tutorial <https://python-gtk-3-tutorial.readthedocs.io>`_. 76 77 The older PyGtk bindings for the `Gtk+ 2 toolkit <https://www.gtk.org>`_ have 78 been implemented by James Henstridge; see <http://www.pygtk.org>. 79 80 Kivy 81 ---- 82 83 `Kivy <https://kivy.org/>`_ is a cross-platform GUI library supporting both 84 desktop operating systems (Windows, macOS, Linux) and mobile devices (Android, 85 iOS). It is written in Python and Cython, and can use a range of windowing 86 backends. 87 88 Kivy is free and open source software distributed under the MIT license. 89 90 FLTK 91 ---- 92 93 Python bindings for `the FLTK toolkit <http://www.fltk.org>`_, a simple yet 94 powerful and mature cross-platform windowing system, are available from `the 95 PyFLTK project <http://pyfltk.sourceforge.net>`_. 96 97 OpenGL 98 ------ 99 100 For OpenGL bindings, see `PyOpenGL <http://pyopengl.sourceforge.net>`_. 101 102 103 What platform-specific GUI toolkits exist for Python? 104 ======================================================== 105 106 By installing the `PyObjc Objective-C bridge 107 <https://pythonhosted.org/pyobjc/>`_, Python programs can use Mac OS X's 108 Cocoa libraries. 109 110 :ref:`Pythonwin <windows-faq>` by Mark Hammond includes an interface to the 111 Microsoft Foundation Classes and a Python programming environment 112 that's written mostly in Python using the MFC classes. 113 114 115 Tkinter questions 116 ================= 117 118 How do I freeze Tkinter applications? 119 ------------------------------------- 120 121 Freeze is a tool to create stand-alone applications. When freezing Tkinter 122 applications, the applications will not be truly stand-alone, as the application 123 will still need the Tcl and Tk libraries. 124 125 One solution is to ship the application with the Tcl and Tk libraries, and point 126 to them at run-time using the :envvar:`TCL_LIBRARY` and :envvar:`TK_LIBRARY` 127 environment variables. 128 129 To get truly stand-alone applications, the Tcl scripts that form the library 130 have to be integrated into the application as well. One tool supporting that is 131 SAM (stand-alone modules), which is part of the Tix distribution 132 (http://tix.sourceforge.net/). 133 134 Build Tix with SAM enabled, perform the appropriate call to 135 :c:func:`Tclsam_init`, etc. inside Python's 136 :file:`Modules/tkappinit.c`, and link with libtclsam and libtksam (you 137 might include the Tix libraries as well). 138 139 140 Can I have Tk events handled while waiting for I/O? 141 --------------------------------------------------- 142 143 On platforms other than Windows, yes, and you don't even 144 need threads! But you'll have to restructure your I/O 145 code a bit. Tk has the equivalent of Xt's :c:func:`XtAddInput()` call, which allows you 146 to register a callback function which will be called from the Tk mainloop when 147 I/O is possible on a file descriptor. See :ref:`tkinter-file-handlers`. 148 149 150 I can't get key bindings to work in Tkinter: why? 151 ------------------------------------------------- 152 153 An often-heard complaint is that event handlers bound to events with the 154 :meth:`bind` method don't get handled even when the appropriate key is pressed. 155 156 The most common cause is that the widget to which the binding applies doesn't 157 have "keyboard focus". Check out the Tk documentation for the focus command. 158 Usually a widget is given the keyboard focus by clicking in it (but not for 159 labels; see the takefocus option). 160
