In this article we want to learn about Building Python Cross Platform Applications with wxPython, so Python is popular programming language, because it is easy, powerful and has cross platform capabilities. and using wxPython library developers can create powerful, feature rich applications that work on multiple operating systems. in this article we want to talk about the basics of wxPython and demonstrate how to build cross platform applications using it. first of all let’s talk about wxPython.
What is wxPython ?
wxPython is Python wrapper for the wxWidgets C++ toolkit. wxWidgets is set of tools that allows developers to create native looking graphical user interfaces (GUIs) for Windows, macOS and Linux using C++ programming language. wxPython provides Python bindings for these tools, and this makes it easy for Python developers to create cross platform applications with native look and feel.
Why use wxPython ?
wxPython is an excellent choice for building cross platform applications because it provides native look and feel on multiple platforms. this means that your application will look and behave like native application on Windows, macOS and Linux, and thiscan improve user experience. wxPython is also easy to use which means that developers can create applications quickly and efficiently.
Building Python Cross Platform Applications with wxPython
First of all we need to install wxPython and we can use pip for that.
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pip install wxPython |
Now let’s start by creating simple GUI that displays a button. for this we need to create wx.App object, which represents our application, and wx.Frame objec which represents main window of our application. after that we can add wx.Button object to the frame like this.
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import wx class MyApp(wx.App): def OnInit(self): frame = wx.Frame(None, title='Geekscoders.com') button = wx.Button(frame, label='Click') frame.Show() return True app = MyApp() app.MainLoop() |
This code creates new class called MyApp that extends from wx.App. OnInit method is called when the application is started and is used to create main window of the application. in this case we have created new wx.Frame object, and added wx.Button object with a label. after that we show the frame and return True to indicate that the initialization was successful. and finally we create an instance of MyApp and call the MainLoop method to start the application. MainLoop method listens for events such as button clicks and updates the GUI accordingly.
Run the code and this will be the result
In the above example we have created simple Python cross platform application with wxPython, now let’s talk about event handling in wxPython, Event handling is important aspect of GUI programming, and wxPython provides an easy way to handle events. let’s create simple GUI that displays a button and updates a label when the button is clicked.
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import wx class MyApp(wx.Frame): def __init__(self): wx.Frame.__init__(self, None, title="Geekscoders.com") panel = wx.Panel(self) self.button = wx.Button(panel, label="Click me") self.button.Bind(wx.EVT_BUTTON, self.on_button_click) self.label = wx.StaticText(panel, label="Hello wxPython", pos=(50, 50)) def on_button_click(self, event): self.label.SetLabel("Welcome to geekscoders.com") if __name__ == "__main__": app = wx.App() frame = MyApp() frame.Show() app.MainLoop() |
In this code we have created new class called MyApp that extends from wx.Frame. we have initialized the frame with panel, button and label. next we bind the button to the on_button_click method using Bind method. Bind method takes two arguments: event type and the event handler. in this case we bind the button to the wx.EVT_BUTTON event and on_button_click method.
on_button_click method takes one argument, event object. this object contains information about the event that occurred such as widget that generated the event. in this case we simply update the label with the SetLabel method to indicate that the button was clicked.
Run the code click on the button and this will be the result
wxPython provides different collection of widgets that you can use to create your GUI applications. these are list of some of the most important widgets:
| wx.Frame | This is the main window of the application, which contains other widgets such as buttons, menus and panels. |
| wx.Button | This is simple push button that the user can click to initiate an action. |
| wx.StaticText | This is a label that displays static text such as instructions or information. |
| wx.TextCtrl | This is a text box that the user can use to input text. |
| wx.CheckBox | This is a widget that allows the user to select or deselect an option. |
| wx.RadioButton | This is set of buttons that allows the user to select one option from a group of options. |
| wx.ComboBox | This is drop down list that allows the user to select one item from a list of options. |
| wx.ListBox | This is a list of items from which the user can select one or more items. |
| wx.Slider | This is a widget that allows the user to select a value from a range by sliding a thumb along a bar. |
| wx.MenuBar | This is container for menus that are displayed at the top of the window. |
| wx.Menu | This is container for menu items that are displayed when the user clicks on a menu. |
| wx.MenuItem | This is an item in a menu that performs an action when clicked. |
| wx.Dialog | This is secondary window that can be used to display messages or prompt the user for input. |
| wx.FileDialog | This is a dialog box that allows the user to select a file. |
| wx.DirDialog | This is a dialog box that allows the user to select a directory. |
These are just some of the important widgets that wxPython provides. there are many more including more specialized widgets for drawing graphics, displaying tables and more.
