Picking a suitable GUI framework for project - python

I have a project where I have to show some sort of changing bar graph with results from a function. This bar graph should be in colour and 3d. I want it to look good since it's an open source educational program where it teaches the user about different voting systems and how they effect the outcome of an election. I would like to use python but I have no idea about using GUI frameworks since all my work in python has been command line based. Your help will be appreciated.

For 3D graphics, you might want to use OpenGL with a game framework, such as PyGame or Pyglet. Use matplotlib as TJD suggested in the other answer.
As for GUI frameworks, they generally won't help much with 3D graphics:
PyQt is one choice; I see you already have it in the question tags. PySide is very similar to PyQt, but with a nicer licence.
Then there's tkinter (in the standard library), wxPython, and pyGTK – I hear all of them are good, though I don't know them personally.
Pick one and stay with it. It'll take some time to learn if you're not experienced, so don't expect results too soon.

You might want to look at matplotlib, which is probably the most widely used library for doing graphs, including 3-D.

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GUI toolkit for creating fully customized UIs? If I were going for a completely non-os native look, which toolkit would you suggest?

I've been asked to build a gui for a friend. We're going for a fully custom look. All buttons, states, widgets, etc.. will be will be drawn by an artist. The only native widget I foresee needing is a listbox (because I'm not entirely sure how I would build one from scratch).
Additional requirements are mp3 playback support.
The list of available frameworks on python.org is pretty daunting! Could anyone suggest a good starting point?
I apologize for the open ended-ness of the question!
Build it with pygame would be my advice.
That will give you a pixel identical GUI on all platforms - ideal if you have an artist make everything for you.
You'll have to implement your own listbox, but pygame plays mp3s just fine.

Adding wxPython GUI elements in a pygame physics simulation

I have made a pygame physics simulation--'a projectile motion' but it lacks interactivity like accepting angle of launch,speed etc. I am wanting to add input boxes with increase decrease arrows but don't know how to go about it. Thanks for the help.
Maybe you can try PGU (Phil's pyGame Utilities).
In addition to other tools, it has a library for creating GUIs.
This PGU demo shows probably something similar to that you are looking for:
Try Some of these:
http://wiki.wxpython.org/IntegratingPyGame
http://www.pygame.org/project-Pygame+embedded+in+wxPython-1580-2788.html
Good luck!
I don't think trying to add wx-Elements is a very pygame way of implementing a GUI, a better (in sense of portable) way would be to use some all-in-python-GUI-extention for pygame. But the issue of GUI in pygame is anoying, since I could not find any library that offeres such a thing.
I know of two interesting approches, first there is Albow (a little bit of widgetry for pygame), which has a nice implementation of styles. The newest Version (which is not very new, I'm afraid) can be found at http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/greg.ewing/python/Albow/
Then there is OcempGUI http://ocemp.sourceforge.net/gui.html -- which has documentation and an some good concepts of event handling.
The sad thing is, both projects seem to be dead. I know of no other pygame-GUI that is worth looking at (correct my on that one, please!). For my own project I started to build something inspired by both of them (just don't expect that to ever become useable), since I'm not really content with either of the two. But they might by just the thing if you don't want to put too much time into it and want to have a good collection of GUI elements from labels and buttons up to file browsing dialogs or scrollable text fields.

Interacting with 3D objects in Python 3?

I am currently in the planing stage of building an interactive periodic table of the elements program in python 3. It won't be a super advanced program, since I am only a beginner in python 3 (4-5 months of self-training).
Basically, when you click on an element of the periodic table, you will look at its properties in more detail and would have a dynamic 3D view of the an animated atom (with the electrons circling around it) which I would create in Blender. Here is a simple mockup I just made for people who are visual (lots of stuff missing here, but it's only the basic shell).
Ok, so my question is: How can I interact with 3D objects in Python 3? I have searched, and have found that PyGame can handle this, but it seems it's not the best to handle 3D graphics, and I am not sure if PyGame is ideal for this kind of program. Of course, there is vpython, but it doesn't work with Python 3. So how can I manage to do this?
Please keep in mind that I am a beginner, so any resources you think can help me would be of great appreciation!
Thanks to all.
The easiest could be to use images and videos.
But if you want to manipulate 3D, there are PyOpenGL and VPython.
PyOpenGL provides low level interface to display 3D objects.
PyOpenGL can be used with PyQt or PyGame to have a 3D display within a 2D GUI.
Edit: there is also a build of vpython for 32bit python 3.1 on windows

Python with beautiful UI + glass effect

I'm a new in Python.
I would like to know can I create good interface on python, something like WPF?
I didn't find any glass effect with PyQt. It's really important for my decision.
Thanks.
I'm sorry that I didn't give a lot of details. I need to port WPF app to python. The main goal I still need a good UI. Can I make something like this
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/silverlight/SilverlightGlassOrbButton.aspx?msg=3170079
on python? Can I use different styles for mouseover and normal state?
Glass effect is probably a Qt skin and has nothing to do with Python in particular. People say that there's a tutorial for Qt skinning. I failed to quickly google a ready-made glass-like skin, though.
Also, in the new QT RC there is a new support system for GUI related stuff. QML it is called, and examples can be found here. I do not know if it alreade wrapped in PyQT but I suppose it is possible to use it in combination with PyQT.
If glass effect = transparency, then Qt supports this, but it requires a special flag set on the window. See http://doc.qt.nokia.com/qq/qq16-background.html for some examples.
If you want a blurred background, then I doubt it can be done as easily, since not many GUI-frameworks that Qt supports do compositing like Vista & Win7, so it's probably hard to abstract into a cross-platform toolkit.
But simpler things might be possible, and with QGraphicsScene, you can do a lot of these things yourself (but not w.r.t. the window's background, IIUC).
If you have no luck with Qt, wxPython can do it. See How to draw a transparent frame in wxpython.
You can check out the fluent app library

Creating an image editing application in Python

I need a tile/sprite editor kind of like Pixen, but I couldn't find one for Windows so I thought it might be a good exercise for me to try and put one together. I use Python, so are there any libraries out there that are suited to the task of putting together a simple tile/sprite editor?
You just need a gui toolkit (gtk, qt, wx) a image library (PIL) and 500 hours of free time ...
Have you looked at the Python Imaging Library (PIL)?
So, the fact is that creating a complex app with a nice UI takes time - I am just expanding a little bit on the answer by THC4k.
PIL, at least PIL alone is useless for this: it does have some functions to manipulate images, but the complicate task here is creating and tunning your desired UI.
That's where the widgets toolkits come in: You would have to pick a toolkit platform that can offer you buttons, images, load and save the image files, maybe some specialzed widgets you can use to create your color swatches, etc.
both GTK+ and QT4.5 have a liberal license, are very complete and very unpythonic on their use :-(
(While you are at it, when using these libraries and toolkits our app can easily be multiplatform: you don't have to make it windows specific, it is equally easy to create an app that will run on Windows, Linux and Mac using python and either GTK+ or Qt4)
One thing I would suggest is for you to learn to proper use GIMP: it is an Image editor, and certainly it will lack a lot of tools you are needing for sprites: but you can expand it's capabilities with Python plug-ins. On the other hand GIMP does have thousands of features that you'd no longer will need to create for your stand-alone app. (think on layer support, color filters, image rotation etc...)
Check around on how to install GIMP with Python support on Windows, then spend some hours learning the app, with some book-like text around preferably so you can find the hidden features.
Ah, ok, finally:
If you want a very simple thing, just for the taste of "i did it" - you can use Pygame: You have to do all the drawing on the window, including text - but have straighter access to pixels, colors, mouse clicks and coordinates than with GTK+ or Qt, in a sense it would be a lot less of overhead for you to learn in terms of API's and internal working.
You could try PyGame but, seriously, you couldn't find a freeware graphics editor for Windows??!!
EDIT: In the past I've used Aha-Soft's IconXP for pixel work, but it costs USD 30 and doesn't offer all of the Pixen features that I guess you'll want.

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