4 ms·

As someone who has been working with Python a lot up to this year, I am wondering has the state of GUI frameworks improved for Python in the recent months/years

by elAhmo 5y ago

As someone who has been working with Python a lot up to this year, I am wondering has the state of GUI frameworks improved for Python in the recent months/years? If I want to have, lets say, an application that looks (and works) like a native MacOS or Windows application, would I bet able to do that? All of the examples look really odd, with weird buttons and simply not feeling like native apps.

tonyedgecombe 5y ago
wxWidgets does use native controls so should feel like a native app. Sadly this is its only redeeming feature.
- bsenftner 5y ago
  I'm curious way people hate on wxWidgets so much. As a cross platform GUI, it works, and has a better license for developers than QT, and when investigating QT it looked like it requires more than just a library, but QT specific tooling to build things.
  - toyg 5y ago
    > I'm curious way people hate on wxWidgets so much. Because it just looks bad and outdated on most platforms.
    - bsenftner 5y ago
      Which would be a criticism of looking native, because that is all wxWidgets is doing. It's a wrapper for the underlying OS's native GUI.
      - toyg 5y ago
        Yeah but there is native and native. Both Windows and MacOS carry widgets and styles from so many releases, and there is some intelligence involved in picking up the "expected" one with the right style etc. WxWidgets seems to make the wrong choice very often, with the result that the apps look very dated. It's probably possible to make it do the right thing, but other toolkits just do that by default.
        bsenftner 5y ago
        I've been thinking about this comment. It is super easy to enable which native gui one wants. However, I suspect the issue is one of cognitive overload: developing for the web is more complicated than developing native software for a single OS. These days, young developers learn web development first, and everything they learn is basically operating system independent. Simply the prospect of learning how to build software that is OS specific probably feels like a step backwards, and that negative cognitive association is enough to cause many/most young developers to groupthink themselves away from any native platform ambitions.
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    Poor quality (although I should qualify that by saying I haven't touched it for a long time).
schleck8 5y ago
Yes, it would possible to develop a GUI that looks native, but from my experience and those of others it's rather a hassle when you try to make something more complex.
toyg 5y ago
PyQt and "QT for Python" both use the QT framework, which uses native widgets and supports Windows, MacOS, and KDE on Linux. It's kind of the gold-standard of desktop toolkits for Python. This said, in the age of Electron, "things not looking native" does not seem to be a problem for most users.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  And way less resource intensive than Electron.
wizzwizz4 5y ago
The state of GUI frameworks full stop has not improved in the recent half-decade. As far as I can tell, we still have the same old problems; tkinter.ttk with the grid placement manager is still your best shot (and many languages, like Rust, don't even have something that good).

by elAhmo 5y ago

tonyedgecombe 5y ago

wxWidgets does use native controls so should feel like a native app. Sadly this is its only redeeming feature.

bsenftner 5y ago
I'm curious way people hate on wxWidgets so much. As a cross platform GUI, it works, and has a better license for developers than QT, and when investigating QT it looked like it requires more than just a library, but QT specific tooling to build things.
- toyg 5y ago
  > I'm curious way people hate on wxWidgets so much. Because it just looks bad and outdated on most platforms.
  - bsenftner 5y ago
    Which would be a criticism of looking native, because that is all wxWidgets is doing. It's a wrapper for the underlying OS's native GUI.
    - toyg 5y ago
      Yeah but there is native and native. Both Windows and MacOS carry widgets and styles from so many releases, and there is some intelligence involved in picking up the "expected" one with the right style etc. WxWidgets seems to make the wrong choice very often, with the result that the apps look very dated. It's probably possible to make it do the right thing, but other toolkits just do that by default.
      - bsenftner 5y ago
        I've been thinking about this comment. It is super easy to enable which native gui one wants. However, I suspect the issue is one of cognitive overload: developing for the web is more complicated than developing native software for a single OS. These days, young developers learn web development first, and everything they learn is basically operating system independent. Simply the prospect of learning how to build software that is OS specific probably feels like a step backwards, and that negative cognitive association is enough to cause many/most young developers to groupthink themselves away from any native platform ambitions.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  Poor quality (although I should qualify that by saying I haven't touched it for a long time).

schleck8 5y ago

Yes, it would possible to develop a GUI that looks native, but from my experience and those of others it's rather a hassle when you try to make something more complex.

toyg 5y ago

PyQt and "QT for Python" both use the QT framework, which uses native widgets and supports Windows, MacOS, and KDE on Linux. It's kind of the gold-standard of desktop toolkits for Python. This said, in the age of Electron, "things not looking native" does not seem to be a problem for most users.

pjmlp 5y ago
And way less resource intensive than Electron.

wizzwizz4 5y ago

The state of GUI frameworks full stop has not improved in the recent half-decade. As far as I can tell, we still have the same old problems; tkinter.ttk with the grid placement manager is still your best shot (and many languages, like Rust, don't even have something that good).