Cross-platform gui toolkit for deploying Python applications

Question

Building on: http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/7v5ra/whats_your_favorite_gui_toolkit_and_why/

Merits:

1 - ease of design / integration - learning curve

2 - support / availability for *nix, Windows, Mac, extra points for native l&f, support for mobile or web

3 - pythonic API

4 - quality of documentation - I want to do something a bit more complicated, now what?

5 - light weight packaging so it's not necessary to include a full installer (py2exe, py2app would ideally work as-is and not generate a gazillion MBs file)

6 - licensing

7 - others? (specify)

---

Contenders:

1 - tkinter, as currently supported (as of 2.6, 3.0)

2 - pyttk library

3 - pyGTK

4 - pyQt

5 - wxPython

6 - HTML-CGI via Python-based framework (Django, Turbogears, web.py, Pylons...) or Paste

7 - others? (specify)

Hoopes

html-cgi as a gui toolkit? WTF? – Flyblow

As a substitute for one, which also allows for remote-control out of the box. deluge-torrent.org/screenshots.php You are right, but the question had to fit one line... – Hoopes

ddaa - yes, you can integrate a web server (which python already has in the standard lib) into your app and use the browser as a GUI. some applications do that – Unseasoned

so which one did you choose ? – Haematosis

Answer 1

Please don't hesitate to expand this answer.

Tkinter

Tkinter is the toolkit that comes with python. That means you already have everything you need to write a GUI. What that also means is that if you choose to distribute your program, most likely everyone else already has what they need to run your program.

Tkinter is mature and stable, and is (at least arguably) quite easy to use.I found it easier to use than wxPython, but obviously that's somewhat subjective.

Tkinter gets a bad rap for looking ugly and out of date. While it's true that it's easy to create ugly GUIs with Tkinter, it's also pretty easy to create nice looking GUIs. Tkinter doesn't hold your hand, but it doesn't much get in the way, either. Tkinter looks best on the Mac and Windows since it uses native widgets there, but it looks OK on linux, too.

The other point about the look of Tkinter is that, for the most part, look isn't as important as people make it out to be. Most applications written with toolkits such as Tkinter, wxPython, PyQT, etc are special-purpose applications. For the types of applications these toolkits are used for, usability trumps looks. If the look of the application is important, it's easy enough to polish up a Tkinter application.

Tkinter has some features that other toolkits don't come close to matching. Variable traces, named fonts, geometry (layout) managers, and the way Tkinter processes events are still the standard to which other toolkits should be judged.

On the downside, Tkinter is a wrapper around a Tcl interpreter that runs inside python. This is mostly invisible to anyone developing with Tkinter, but it sometimes results in error messages that expose this architecture. You'll get an error complaining about a widget with a name like ".1245485.67345" which will make almost no sense to anyone unless you're also familiar with how Tcl/tk works.

Another downside is that Tkinter doesn't have as many pre-built widgets as wxPython. The hierarchical tree widget in Tkinter is a little weak, for example, and there's no built-in table widget. On the other hand, Tkinter's canvas and text widgets are extremely powerful and easy to use. For most types of applications you will write, however, you'll have everything you need. Just don't expect to replicate Microsoft Word or Photoshop with Tkinter.

I don't know what the license is for Tkinter, I assume the same as for python as a whole. Tcl/tk has a BSD-style license.

PyQt

It's build on top of Qt, a C++ framework. It's quite advanced and has some good tools like the Qt Designer to design your applications. You should be aware though, that it doesn't feel like Python 100%, but close to it. The documentation is excellent

This framework is really good. It's being actively developed by Trolltech, who is owned by Nokia. The bindings for Python are developed by Riverbank.

PyQt is available under the GPL license or a commercial one. The price of a riverbank PyQt license is about 400 euro per developer.

Qt is not only a GUI-framework but has a lot of other classes too, one can create an application by just using Qt classes. (Like SQL, networking, scripting, …)

Qt used to emulate GUI elements on every platform but now uses native styles of the platforms (although not native GUI toolkits): see the documentation for Mac OS X and the windows XP style

Packaging is as simple as running py2exe or pyInstaller. The content of my PyQt app looks like this on windows (I have used InnoSetup on top of it for proper installation):

pyticroque.exe           PyQt4.QtGui.pyd           unicodedata.pyd
MSVCP71.dll              PyQt4._qt.pyd             unins000.dat
MSVCR71.dll              python25.dll              unins000.exe
PyQt4.QtCore.pyd         sip.pyd                   _socket.pyd

QT comes with a widget designer and even in recent versions with an IDE to help design Qt software.

PySide

PySide is a LGPL binding to Qt. It's developed by nokia as a replacement for the GPL PyQt.

Although based on a different technology than the existing GPL-licensed PyQt bindings, PySide will initially aim to be API-compatible with them. In addition to the PyQt-compatible API, a more Pythonic API will be provided in the future.

wxPython

wxPython is a binding for Python using the wxWidgets-Framework. This framework is under the LGPL licence and is developed by the open source community.

What I'm really missing is a good tool to design the interface, they have about 3 but none of them is usable.

One thing I should mention is that I found a bug in the tab-view despite the fact that I didn't use anything advanced. (Only on Mac OS X) I think wxWidgets isn't as polished as Qt.

wxPython is really only about the GUI-classes, there isn't much else.

wxWidgets uses native GUI elements.

An advantage wxPython has over Tkinter is that wxPython has a much larger library of widgets from which to choose from.

Others

I haven't got any experience with other GUI frameworks, maybe someone else has.

Crosscheck

Qt simulates native Windows widgets, and I've yet to see one that doesn't look native enough, so for all practical purposes they are native – Unseasoned

I've changed it, but why not do it yourself, it's a community wiki after all. – Hertz

"What I'm really missing is a good tool to design the interface, they have about 3 but none of them is usable." I think the best method is to code the main Frame by hand and use wxGlade for dialogs and so forth. I agree the designers could be better. – Jamilajamill

Far from nice to work with it. Plus wxWidgets won't use system-dependent margins when used with such tools. – Hertz

What about PyGame? Is it fit for this list? – Twostep

Out of curiosity, what is wrong with sourceforge.net/projects/wxformbuilder – Jenicejeniece

"Tkinter looks best on the Mac and Windows since it uses native widgets there" Not on Windows. It does not match the system theme: https://mcmap.net/q/355820/-what-39-s-the-simplest-cross-platform-way-to-pop-up-graphical-dialogs-in-python – Quip

Answer 2

I'm just weighing in to say that TKinter sucks. It sadly seems that it is packed with Python because of backwards compatibility.

The documentation is horrible. It looks horrible. I have run into some bizarre bugs that will actually crash Python.

Casease

FWIW, I've had wxPython crash on me orders of magnitude more than tkinter. I guess it all depends on how you're using it, what version, and what platform. – Ayah

Answer 3

Jython.

Jython is an implementation of the high-level, dynamic, object-oriented language Python written in 100% Pure Java, and seamlessly integrated with the Java platform. It thus allows you to run Python on any Java platform.

You can use either Swing, Applet, or other GUI frameworks available to Java platform. See Java Tutorials for Graphical User Interfaces and 2D Graphics. There are plenty of books and documentation such as API reference.

Here's a Hello world Swing application from An Introduction to Jython.

from javax.swing import *

frame = JFrame("Hello Jython")
label = JLabel("Hello Jython!", JLabel.CENTER)
frame.add(label)
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE)
frame.setSize(300, 300)
frame.show()

Here's a Jython applet by Todd Ditchendorf that demonstrates multi-threaded particle drawing (60 lines).

from __future__ import nested_scopes
import java.lang as lang
import java.util as util
import java.awt as awt
import javax.swing as swing

class Particle:

    def __init__(self,initX,initY):
    self.x = initX
    self.y = initY
    self.rng = util.Random()

    def move(self):
    self.x += self.rng.nextInt(10) - 5
    self.y += self.rng.nextInt(20) - 10

    def draw(self,g2):
    g2.drawRect(self.x,self.y,10,10)

class ParticleCanvas(awt.Canvas):

    def __init__(self,newSize):
    awt.Canvas.__init__(self,size=(newSize,newSize))

    def paint(self,g2):
    for p in self.particles:
        p.draw(g2)

class ParticleApplet(swing.JApplet):

    def init(self):
    self.canvas = ParticleCanvas(self.getWidth())
    self.contentPane.add(self.canvas)

    def start(self):
    n = 10
    particles = []
    for i in range(n):
        particles.append(Particle(150,150))
    self.canvas.particles = particles

    self.threads = []
    for i in range(n):
        self.threads.append(self.makeThread(particles[i]))
        self.threads[i].start()

    def makeThread(self,p):

    class MyRunnable(lang.Runnable):
        def run(this):
        try:
            while 1:
            p.move()
            self.canvas.repaint()
            lang.Thread.sleep(100)
        except lang.InterruptedException:
            return

    return lang.Thread(MyRunnable())

If you are just interested in drawing lines and circles you can probably cut it down to half.

Romito

What Java GUI lib are you suggesting ? How big is it -- pages of doc, lines of code for say a canvas with draw rect / line / text ? Thanks – Kesterson

one caveat, jython doesn't work with python modules that require a C interface – Housewife

Answer 4

I would definitely appreciate it if anyone knows of something better than what's commonly discussed; I see to have headaches finding something appropriate...

Qt is great, but PyQt doesn't seem to have the same development resources. It seems to have some clever way to generate bindings, but isn't complete (e.g. PyKDE terminal kpart) and there is a dearth of documentation (as the developers admit). Compatibility with Qt's UI designer is nice.

wxpython - controls aren't as nice looking, widget library isn't as large as KDE.

OpenGL - doesn't even support fonts by default... pygame is okay, but opengl being a state machine is too annoying (object oriented models prevent making the a call in the wrong state).

XUL - neat idea, I wish it worked. The pyxulrunner tutorial didn't work for me, though -- first I had to add the xulrunner /usr/lib path to LD_LIBRARY_PATH, then it still had problems with "from xpcom import components"...

my wishlist for a ui library would be

• Python integration (i.e. uses builtins like unicode, modules like threading, and language features like closures)
• good intermediate representation (like XUL instead of generating hundreds of lines looking like "listbox91.addChild(label28)")
• simple mutlithreaded support (automatic locks or event posting so e.g. elt.setText can be called from any thread; let the designer manage locking with Python locks if necessary)
• user-centric features as well - scripting of a sequence of UI events, ability to keybind anything (KDE has dcop, but afaik binding isn't done automatically by the UI library), and intercept events.
• potential for a large, easy-to-contribute standard library.
• documentation, though if the library was well designed and generated enough interest, this would be a given.

In my experience, html is so much easier to get something good-looking up than UI libraries.

edit - after working with PyQt 4 for a while, it gets the job done for simple UI's. I'm currently not developing for end users, so looks don't matter. The QTextBrowser is very useful for displaying basic HTML tables and generating HTML links.

Telegenic

I don't understand your complaint about PyQt. There is only one guy working on it, yes, but the job is quite simple: map the C++ Qt DLL in python, and it's performed by an automatic tool sip. The that guy's job is just to maintain sip, which he has been doing very well for the last 9 years. Then you complain about PyKDE but this is offtopic, the question is about Qt. – Nipa

I know that; I'm not trying to assault him. As I said in the edit on the bottom, Qt gets the job done for me. I am simply trying to evaluate the entire gui toolkit, regardless of what the project sets out to do (or what's Qt's fault vs. PyQt's). The question involves any GUI toolkit, and many compelling features, e.g. the terminal integration, etc. are widgets that come with KDE (and PyKDE is not complete). Further, the stage of code generation is not as flexible as other options; e.g. to load a common resources.rc file not in the same directory as the GUI, one has to modify sys.path. – Telegenic

Answer 5

Pro wxPython

• Lots of tutorials
• wxGlade as an Editor: not perfect yet, but usable.

Aviculture