console application gui for python

Question

We have console application option in C#, but how do I can make a console GUI in python? I should note I want to compile and use my program in windows. Also I want to select

Answer 1

If you're using Windows you will ultimately need to integrate with the win32 console API to create a console GUI (aka. a Text UI or TUI). Your options are basically:

1. Write your TUI using curses or the packages that sit on top of it, like urwid or npyscreen. To do this you either need to install cygwin or PDcurses to make it work.
2. Write to the win32 API directly using something like pywin32.
3. Use a package that simplifies the win32 API like effbot's console package.

I found all the above unsatisfactory as I didn't want all the hassle of installing 3rd party binaries for Windows and wanted an API that I could use anywhere (after a simple pip install), so I wrote a cross-platform package (asciimatics) to fix it. This package takes all the hassle away and provides a clean, documented API with a set of widgets for TUI applications.

For example the following is a screenshot of the contacts list sample code referenced in the previous docs link, showing some of the basic text and button widgets.

Answer 2

Take a look at Python's curses library:

• http://docs.python.org/howto/curses.html
• http://www.dev-explorer.com/articles/python-with-curses
• http://docs.python.org/library/curses.html

If you'd like a Python shell, then you might want to look at something like PyFlakes / PyShell or similar.