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