I am developing a cross platform app in Python using wxPython. The app is fully developed, and the graphics toolkit is set in stone, at least for the time being.
On Windows, everything looks great. On Linux, everything looks pretty good. On Mac, I am having trouble with a combobox/choice being hidden in the toolbar, even though it shows up fine on Windows.
Here is a snapshot of my app on Linux, noting the entire "CoeffConv ..." section is part of the perfectly displayed combobox:
And here is a snapshot of the same exact codebase on Mac:
I've tried with wx.ComboBox and wx.Choice with the same effect. I've made sure to call Realize() after I've added my toolbar items. I've made sure AddControl is called to actually add the object to the toolbar. It's definitely trying to render because the spacing is exactly what I would expect, given the contents of the choice field.
In fact, if I don't call AddControl, but I create the choice field with the toolbar as the parent, the box gets rendered but things aren't arranged properly due to the missing AddControl call:
As another check, I created a super simple toolbar with choice demo, and it works just fine:
So, here's the summary of things I know:
On Windows, the choice field works perfect, indicating the code isn't necessarily wrong.
On Linux, the choice field works perfect, supporting the idea that the code is actually OK.
On Mac, the choice field is present it seems, but somehow invisible, implying this is a problem with the Mac, or the Python distribution on Mac, or the combobox control in the wxPython distribution on Mac.
On Mac, I can get the choice to render (improperly but still) without an AddControl call, indicating the combobox can render properly, but something is goofy about the placement when added to the toolbar
However, On Mac, I can get a toolbar/choice to render totally fine in a dummy example, indicating it's something about my implementation...but I can't figure out what would cause it as I'm trying to make the exact same calls to the wx objects as in the dummy example.
I can't get the dummy example to reproduce the problem, but I'll keep trying. I'm happy to report out some object properties if they would be helpful in diagnosing. If someone has a clue for what could cause it to not show up, I'd really appreciate it!
While I couldn't find the root as to why it didn't work on Mac, I did find an issue that could help others.
First a little more background. In the app, we have multiple toolbars. Because of that, we are creating toolbars using plain wx.ToolBar objects and adding them to the app frame using sizers. This is in contrast to the more standard method of using self.CreateToolBar() which only allows a frame to have a single toolbar.
When I make a single change to the code to use the more natural CreateToolBar interface, the combobox immediately shows up. When I do that, the second toolbar is messed up, but at least the initial toolbar works perfectly. I'll be investigating how to get multiple toolbars on Mac, but it's a step in the right direction.
It's been a while, but there's another solution to this for wxPython 4 if you can't use CreateToolBar():
The widgets do get added to the bar and reserve the correct amount of space, but they fail to draw properly. You can resolve this by calling control.Hide() followed by control.Show() on each widget control, which then makes them draw properly.
Related
I'm wondering how difficult it will be to use invoke matplotlib from a Tcl interpreter and plot to a Tk canvas created on the Tcl side.
I'm wondering what the best way to do this is.
I'm guessing I'll have to create a python interpreter, pass the canvas handle from the Tcl side to python and make use of the C API in both languages. Or is there a more elegant way?
Getting this integration right won't be easy. However, here's what I'm thinking about:
Connecting Python and Tcl
You can run Python inferior to Tcl apparently. According to this wiki page, there's a package called tclpython which can do the basic integration work for you, and the page linked to appears live. The code appears to be here, though it might need some work to make it build. (I've never tried.)
Connecting matplotlib and Tk
You can make matplotlib draw on a Tkinter window, and as long as you can make that Tkinter window with the right options, it will show up. The key is that the underlying system window IDs can be found out from Tk with winfo id $nameOfTheWindow. If you create a frame with the -container option set to true (which turns off some things and turns on a few others; you'll need to set the size explicitly) then that particular frame will be suitable for use with TkAgg on the python/matplotlib side. The key will be to make a toplevel on that side that has the -use option set to the ID retrieved from winfo id. You probably need to make sure that the python side is running its rendering in a separate thread to the outer Tcl/Tk to make the event handling work right (unless you're keen on doing deep event loop hacking; the situation is that you're actually going to have Tcl/Tk inside Python inside Tcl/Tk, as Tkinter works by delegating to a subordinate Tcl/Tk, and getting all this glued together right will be “a bit tricky”).
If that doesn't work, get matplotlib to render as an image (GIF or PNG; the latter is preferred if you've got Tk 8.6) as you can just show that easily via a photo image. This is definitely going to be possible to do without thread games; it's just passing around pure data. Probably slower and not interactive, but that might not matter for what you're doing, and it is easier in the simple case.
You will probably need the second approach if you're on Windows or OSX, as Tk there doesn't actually use X11. (Unless you're using one of the more perverse configuration options, of course.)
How to suppress end user ability to edit/add/delete text in a Text widget? (Python v3.2.. and tkinter)
The point is to suppress only the ability to change/add/delete text but not to castrate other features. Perhaps a NoEdit Text widged would be a better name.
I've tried .text['state'] = 'disabled' and it works almost OK in Windows (it still allows user to select/copy text highlights the selection, page up/down and up/down buttons work. The only thing broken seems to be the cursor made invisible.)
But on MacIntosh everything is broken. No highlights, no select/copy,... UGH
Since Tkinter has practically no documentation in Python, I've searched and found some TCL advise, to derive a new class and suppress the insert and delete functions.
So, I've tried as so:
class roText(tk.Text):
def insert(self,*args,**kwargs):
print(" Hey - Im inside roText.insert")
pass
def delete(self,*args,**twargs):
pass
def pInsert(self,*args,**twargs):
super().insert(*args,**twargs)
Unfortunately it didn't work right. Apparently tkinter does not use those insert and delete functions when end user enters/deletes code. Perhaps those TCL insert/delete are something else, and I lost something in translation from TCL and Swahili. What functions does tkinter.Text use for end user editing text? Hopefully they are not internal...
So, is there a way to modify the Text widget to suppress only end user editing?
Is there a way to do it without diving inside and overriding internal Tkinter code, so the stuff doesn't get broken by next releases of Tkinter?
Looking at the Idle shell window, I see that they've managed to suppress edits (except for the last line). So there is a way. But what is it and how costly?
Sorry for bumping an old question, but I was searching for an answer to this question also and finally found a solution. The solution I found involves overriding the key bindings when the text widget has focus and is pretty simple. Found here.
To override the bindings of a widget there is a bind function where you pass a string of what is to be overridden and the new function you want it to call.
self.txtBox.bind("<Key>", self.empty)
Somewhere else in the class you'll need to define the function to handle the event.
def empty(self, event):
return "break"
By returning the string "break" the event handler knows to stop after your function, instead of continuing with the default action.
I hope this answers your question. Cheers.
The reason the disabled state doesn't seem to work on the Mac is because it turns off the binding that gives focus to the widget. Without focus, the highlighting on a Mac doesn't show up. If you set the state to disabled but then assign a binding to <ButtonPress-1> to explicitly set focus to the disabled text widget, you can then select and copy text and the highlighting will show.
As for the cursor disappearing... arguably, that's what's supposed to happen. The cursor tells the user "this is where text will get inserted". Since no text will get inserted, having that visual clue would be confusing to the user. What you could do instead, if it was really important, is to insert a small image wherever they click to simulate the cursor.
To answer your question about whether the widget actually uses the insert and delete methods: the methods on the actual underlying widget are what the default bindings use, so overriding them in a subclass has no effect. You would need to redo all the default bindings for that to work. It's doable, but a lot of work.
Unfortunately, this is one area where programming in Tcl really shines, because you can simply disable the insert and delete commands of the widget. Of course, you can do that directly in Tkinter also since ultimately it runs tcl code to do everything, but that would involve writing some tcl code which is not a very good solution from the perspective of a Python coder.
I think the best solution is to use the disabled state, then add in just enough bindings to do what you want.
Here's a simple example that works by explicitly setting focus on a mouse button click. With this code I'm able to click and swipe to select a region, or double- or triple-click to select words and lines:
import Tkinter as tk
class SampleApp(tk.Tk):
def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
tk.Tk.__init__(self, *args, **kwargs)
self.text = tk.Text(width=40, height=20)
self.text.bind("<1>", self.set_focus)
self.text.insert("end", "\n".join(dir(tk.Tk)))
self.text.configure(state="disabled")
self.text.pack(fill="both", expand=True)
def set_focus(self, event):
'''Explicitly set focus, so user can select and copy text'''
self.text.focus_set()
if __name__ == "__main__":
app = SampleApp()
app.mainloop()
#BryanOakley It took me a while to test your suggestion since I have no Mac.
Unfortunately Mac implementation of Python is buggy.
I've added focus, ie my disable function which I call after creating a window and inserting text, now calls first:
self.txt['state'] = 'disabled'
and then
self.txt.focus_set()
Which is what I think you've suggested.
It "kind of" worked. Ie: when selecting text (click and drag or double-click) highlighting works most of the time. Python must have some bad memory references or such bugs: Sometimes highlighting doesn't work at first, then it starts working (in the same window) after more clicking. Sometimes when program is invoked it works right of the bat. Sometimes selecting with Shift-rightArrow key will work but selecting with the mouse will not. Then starts working again. Or it will work fine in one window but not in another one (both of the same class), then starts working in all windows...etc...
The good thing is that adding focus did not affect badly Windows (ie all works fine as without focus.
I guess at this point I will just hope that future/next release of Python for Mac will fix those bugs..
BTW, it seems that Mac is a bit of an orphan for Python. Implementation is much uglier then for Windows. I mean the fonts look worse, the buttons, etc.. Or it could be due to different screen resolutions and Python ports that poorly account for those. Not sure
Anyway. Thank you for your help and suggestion to use focus for Mac.
I am writing a simple application and am using glade (gtk) for the UI. I need many windows (~10), of which one will open depending upon the command line flags, other contextual stuff etc.
Now, all these windows are pretty much similar, they have 3 top level tabs, the last tab is the same in all, all have a OK and Quit button etc., so I am looking for a way to build these windows in glade. I could copy paste one window and make the changes in that, but I am looking for a better way, that will allow me to reuse the common parts of the windows.
Also, I am using pygtk for loading up the windows.
Design a widget with the common aspects you mention. Wherever you need to implement something different, put a GtkAlignment with an appropriate name. Don't forget to change the alignment and fill values of the GtkAlignment.
In PyGTK you can gtk.Builder.get_object(name) to get access to these empty regions and add the extra components within them (which can also be designed with Glade).
Ok, with the help of detly's answer, I am able to get something working. For anyone who needs it, here is what I did.
main.glade contains the window and all the common cruft that I need to be displayed in all windows. comp.glade contains a window, with a vbox component with the extra stuff I need, lets call it 'top_comp'.
Now, in main.glade, I put a gtk.Alignment component in the place where I need the extra component to load, and call it, say, 'comp_holder'. With the builder I have, I do
builder = gtk.Builder()
builder.add_from_file('main.glade'))
builder.add_from_file('comp.glade'))
builder.get_object('top_comp').reparent(builder.get_object('comp_holder'))
This method seems to work for now, but I don't know if it is the correct way to do this thing.
Any suggestions for the above welcome.
Following the example at http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.python.general/541418, I've succeeded in creating a callable class for balloon tooltips, but the greater complexities of that code elude me when it comes to customization. I browsed a bit of how it works through msdn, but being a novice at more windows-esque languagues like c and vb, etc. I was unable to make much sense of it.
So I ask ye snakely academics:
Things I'd like to be able to do with that code aside from the standard icon, title, text:
Perform actions based on clicking the tooltip
Modify the tooltip that pops up over the icon in the system tray after loading it (to reflect changing values)
Multiple lines? (Not sure if this can even be done, really)
More information on other things you could do in a windows 7 environment versus XP (which seems to be what this was written for).
Ideally I'd get some sort of return value or some semblance of an event when the tooltip is clicked so that I could run some code, but currently I'm importing that code as a module and calling at various times, so I'm not sure how to handle clicks outside of the popup code itself...
Information on handling these things with python seems quite scarce. Thanks in advance.
Perform actions based on clicking the tooltip
Whats the problem OnTaskbarNotify? Hock yourself in there.
Modify the tooltip that pops up over the icon in the system tray after loading it (to reflect changing values)
Probably not, I am not sure about the WinAPI here. I haven't seen it in the wild, so...
Multiple lines? (Not sure if this can even be done, really)
With most WinAPI, just insert a \n in the string.
More information on other things you could do in a windows 7 environment versus XP (which seems to be what this was written for).
LOTS... But that is a bit vague... It depends what your needs are. But for kol feturez you need to google on your own...
On Linux and Unix systems I use the notify-send OS already implemented system.
import os
os.system('notify-send "'+title+'" "'+message+'")
Maybe in Windows there is some API32 for this.
Check this https://gist.github.com/wontoncc/1808234
I'm not familiar with PowerBuilder but I have a task to create Automatic UI Test Application for PB. We've decided to do it in Python with pywinauto and iaccesible libraries. The problem is that some UI elements like newly added lists record can not be accesed from it (even inspect32 can't get it).
Any ideas how to reach this elements and make them testable?
I'm experimenting with code for a tool for automating PowerBuilder-based GUIs as well. From what I can see, your best bet would be to use the PowerBuilder Native Interface (PBNI), and call PowerScript code from within your NVO.
If you like, feel free to send me an email (see my profile for my email address), I'd be interested in exchanging ideas about how to do this.
I didn't use PowerBuilder for a while but I guess that the problem that you are trying to solve is similar to the one I am trying to address for people making projects with SCADA systems like Wonderware Intouch.
The problem with such an application is that there is no API to get or set the value of a control. So a pywinauto approach can't work.
I've made a small tool to simulate the user events and to get the results from a screencapture. I am usig PIL and pytesser ORM for the analysis of the screen captures. It is not the easiest way but it works OK.
The tool is open-source and free of charge and can be downloaded from my website (Sorry in french). You just need an account but it's free as well. Just ask.
If you can read french, here is one article about testing Intouch-based applications
Sorry for the self promotion, but I was facing a similar problem with no solution so I've written my own. Anyway, that's free and open-source...
I've seen in AutomatedQa support that they a recipe recommending using msaa and setting some properties on the controls. I do not know if it works.
If you are testing DataWindows (the class is pbdwxxx, e.g. pbdw110) you will have to use a combination of clicking at specific coordinates and sending Tab keys to get to the control you want. Of course you can also send up and down arrow keys to move among rows. The easiest thing to do is to start with a normal control like an SLE and tab into the DataWindow. The problem is that the DataWindow is essentially just an image. There is no control for a given field until you move the focus there by clicking or tabbing. I've also found that the DataWindow's iAccessible interface is a bit strange. If you ask the DataWindow for the object with focus, you don't get the right answer. If you enumerate through all of the children you can find the one that has focus. If you can modify the source I also advise that you set AccessibleName for your DataWindow controls, otherwise you probably won't be able to identify the controls except by position (by DataWindow controls I mean the ones inside the DataWindow, not the DataWindow itself). If it's an MDI application, you may also find it useful to locate the MicroHelp window (class fnhelpxxx, e.g. fnhelp110, find from the main application window) to help determine your current context.
Edited to add:
Sikuli looks very promising for testing PowerBuilder. It works by recognizing objects on the screen from a saved fragment of screenshot. That is, you take a screenshot of the part of the screen you want it to find.