Discussion:
TCL/TK as default UI toolkit, and wayland
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kerbingamer376
2016-10-14 11:40:37 UTC
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Python's "standard" (and bundled on most platforms) UI tookkit is TCL/TK. However, this has A LOT of drawbacks:

* It's eyesore on a lot of platforms
* It's non-pythonic
* It just flat out fails on some desktop environments
* On linux it requires X, however lots of distros are now using wayland
and so on.

I think python needs a new "standard" UI toolkit.
kerbingamer376
2016-10-14 11:41:19 UTC
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Post by kerbingamer376
* It's eyesore on a lot of platforms
* It's non-pythonic
* It just flat out fails on some desktop environments
* On linux it requires X, however lots of distros are now using wayland
and so on.
I think python needs a new "standard" UI toolkit.
Sorry for typos.
Chris Warrick
2016-10-14 13:04:52 UTC
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Post by kerbingamer376
* It's eyesore on a lot of platforms
* It's non-pythonic
* It just flat out fails on some desktop environments
* On linux it requires X, however lots of distros are now using wayland
and so on.
I think python needs a new "standard" UI toolkit.
--
https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Okay. What else do you suggest?

* PyQt/PySide requires massive Qt packages, and has licensing issues.
* GTK looks bad outside of GNOME.
* wxPython claims to be back to development, but it wasn’t for the past 2 years.
* Kivy doesn’t even try to feel native anywhere.

I think we’ve just run out of reasonable cross-platform GUI libraries
for Python… You are free to use any of those four, though (or anything
less cross-platform). You don’t have to use Tkinter if you don’t like
it. And it’s not a hard requirement on many Linux distributions.
--
Chris Warrick <https://chriswarrick.com/>
PGP: 5EAAEA16
w***@gmail.com
2016-10-14 14:19:57 UTC
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Post by Chris Warrick
Post by kerbingamer376
* It's eyesore on a lot of platforms
* It's non-pythonic
* It just flat out fails on some desktop environments
* On linux it requires X, however lots of distros are now using wayland
and so on.
I think python needs a new "standard" UI toolkit.
--
https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Okay. What else do you suggest?
* PyQt/PySide requires massive Qt packages, and has licensing issues.
* GTK looks bad outside of GNOME.
* wxPython claims to be back to development, but it wasn’t for the past 2 years.
* Kivy doesn’t even try to feel native anywhere.
I think we’ve just run out of reasonable cross-platform GUI libraries
for Python… You are free to use any of those four, though (or anything
less cross-platform). You don’t have to use Tkinter if you don’t like
it. And it’s not a hard requirement on many Linux distributions.
--
Chris Warrick <https://chriswarrick.com/>
PGP: 5EAAEA16
On Windows, there are no more *working* GUI toolkits [*],
since a long time.

[*] modulo Kivy, I never tested.

Michael Torrie
2016-10-14 14:17:50 UTC
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Post by kerbingamer376
* It's eyesore on a lot of platforms
I thought this was largely solved in recent versions of Tcl/Tk that use
the new Tile widget set (ttk) which recent versions of Python, certainly
3.5, support.

https://docs.python.org/3/library/tkinter.ttk.html
Post by kerbingamer376
* It's non-pythonic
Neither is PyQt/Pyside or PyGObject (GTK+ 3), sadly. PyGTK was rather
pythonic, but since GTK3+ bindings are produced through introspection
utilities, so things aren't nearly so pythonic. A lot more details are
now leaking through into the python side. Code tends to read more like
transliterated C++ code now. But at least the bindings are easy to
generate and keep up to date for the devs.
Post by kerbingamer376
* It just flat out fails on some desktop environments
Not sure what you mean by this. Programs using tkinter crash with an
un-handled exception?

On platforms where tkinter is available, I would say this statement is
flat-out false!
Post by kerbingamer376
* On linux it requires X, however lots of distros are now using wayland
and so on.
I don't think this is a problem. For one, Tcl/Tk will move to wayland
eventually anyway, and as new Python releases come out, they will tend
to track the Tcl/Tk releases. Besides that, desktops that use Wayland
will be supporting X11 applications for a long time to come using an
integrated X server.
Post by kerbingamer376
I think python needs a new "standard" UI toolkit.
The xkcd comic comes to mind!

Most developers who want to do desktop apps already pick their own tools
to do it. They make their choice based on a lot of factors that are
unique to their own circumstance. One size does not fit all.
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