What Python GUI APIs Are Out There? [closed]

Answer 1

PyQt is excellent if you have experience or interest in Qt.

http://www.riverbankcomputing.co.uk/software/pyqt/intro

Answer 2

WX has issues on the Mac.

I had a look here, as I want to get an event driven GUI API to do some stuff in Python. I have wx installed on my mac as part of MatPlotLib, but it does not work properly. It wont take in put from the keyboard. I have installed this three times on three different Mac operating systems, and though it worked the first time, the other two times I had this issue.

This version I am using with Enthought's distribution, so no installation was necessary. When I have installed it separately, there were so many dependent installations, that it was a trial to install.

From what I have read here, I will give Tkinter a go, as this needs to be simple and cross platform, but I thought I would just share the above with you. I like the Mac OS for a number of different reasons, but python tools install far easier on Windows (and probably other Linux). I just thought I would give a Mac perspective here.

Answer 3

Here's a good list.

Answer 4

wxPython, and I'm assuming PyGTK also, can use wxGlade to help you design most UIs you will create. That is a big plus. You don't have to learn how to hand-code the GUI until you're ready. I made several GUI programs straight from wxGlade before I was comfortable enough in how wxPython worked to take a shot at hand-coding.

PyQt has a similar graphic layout device but I've never had good luck getting PyQt to compile correctly. There was also a lack of tutorials and documentation that showed how to create the final Python code; many of the documents I found referred to the C++ version of Qt.

Tkinter is good for quick and dirty programs but, realistically, if you use wxGlade it may be faster to make the program with wxPython. At a minimum, you can use wxGlade to show a visual representation of the program to a client rather than take the time to hand-code the "dummy" program.

Answer 5

Instead of posting a list of your options I will give my humble opinion:

I am in love with wxPython.

I have used Qt in C++ and Tk way back in the Tcl days but what really makes me like wxPython is the demo that you get with it. In the demo you can browse through all the different widgets frames etc that are part of the framework see the source code and actually see how it looks while it is running.

I had some problems getting the Linux version build and installed but now that I have it available I use it all the time. I have used wxPython for small data analysis applications and I have written several internal tools related to comparing test results, merging source code etc.

Answer 6

I prefer PyGTK, because I am a GNOME guy. Using PyGTK feels very pythonic to me. The code organization feels consistent, the documentation is clean and thorough, and it's a very easy toolkit to get used to (except for maybe Treeviews).