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Recommendations for cross-platform GUI Bindings ?

John Roth johnroth at ameritech.net
Thu Feb 14 07:58:31 EST 2002 
"Steven M. Castellotti" <SteveC at innocent.com> wrote in message
news:xBMa8.217$B92.52511 at news.xtra.co.nz...
> Greeting all--
>
> I'm writing an Open Source software application that allows children
to
> create their own video games, and would like to hear anyone's
> recommendations for GUI bindings. The key things I'm looking for are:
>
>  - Cross Platfrom (I need to run on at least Linux and Windows, though
> Mac would be great if possible.)

Have you looked at either tkinter or anygui? Tkinter is availible and
mature on all platforms you suggest, and anygui has the stated
purpose of being both cross-platform and simple.

>
>  - Compiles to something easily executable (Ideally can be run from
the
> web, or can at least be wrapped by an installer)

Anygui is completely python, so it should execute anywhere
that python will. It will use the native GUI in most cases (I believe
they have put using the Mac Gui on the back burner for now, however).

Likewise, Tkinter has wide distribution, and should run most places
that python does.

>  - Has good Image/Graphics routines
>
>
>  - Is well supported (Online documentation/examples are available, or
at
> least an active mailing list. I don't want to get stuck coding for a
> target the dissapears after the developer gets bored)
>
>  - Uses Python or python-esqe syntax.
>
>
>
> So far I'm looking at:
>
> Java 1.2 (Using Jython)
> Java 1.4 (Using Jython)
> pyGTK
>
>
> Java 1.2 is nice because most current web browsers support it, and
Swing
> has some nice features, but saving and loading games to the hard drive
is
> tough without a paid-for signed applet.
>
> Java 1.4 is the most current version of Java, and
> I'm told includes some nice ImageIO routines, but isn't in web
browsers
> yet, and I don't want to have to ask kids to upgrade their software.
> There's still the problem of saving and loading to the hard drive.
>
> pyGTK is what I'm currently using, but GnomeCanvas, the most usful way
> to manipulate on-screen images is not available under win32. In theory
> a pyGTK program can be compiled into a .exe for win32 distribution,
but I
> haven't worked out the details yet.
>
>
>
> If anyone has any recommendations as to technologies I should look at,
I
> would be very interested to hear your thoughts. If Mono was further
along
> on the Linux side, I might consider targetting .Net for win32
development
> ride now, but I like to code under linux and am willing to wait to
move
> onto Mono when its ready.
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> -Steve Castellotti
>  SteveC at Innocent.com
>  http://cogengine.sourceforge.net/
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