[wxPython-dev] Call for help from component devs! :-) (was Re: [wxPython-dev] 2.8.0 plans)

[David Pratt]

Hi Kevin and Robin. I am seeing quite a bit going on with packaging 
these days, particularly with generic buildouts that extend distutils 
(egg packaging) for virtually anything that one may need. This is done 
by creating recipe's that are used to the necessary parts to create self 
contained development or deployment environments.

This can take care of compiling and building from sources also (while 
managing and tracking dependencies). A key advantage is that this parts 
with the notion that everything must be maintained in a system wide 
site-packages also. I find myself that site-packages gets a bit polluted 
after a while. The requirements for all python apps are not the same - 
as varied as the reasons one might wish to run one distribution of 
python (or wxpython) over another.

I'd like to know where wxpython fits into this reality and future. While 
py2app, py2exe will continue to fit into desktop deployment, I can see 
buildouts assisting with this also. For the modern python developer, 
eggs are state of the art. Could contributed packages not fit into a 
namespace for wxpython - and be distributed through pypi on the 
cheeseshop? Could not even wxpython itself be refactored into a series 
of eggs (that may be reconstituted to sort out dependencies) and 
distributed though the same mechanism.

Python is python after all, and we are only talking about packages that 
can fit into one or more generic namespaces. It is only important that 
apps are aware of the namespace to accept imports. Many thanks.

Regard,
David


Kevin Ollivier wrote:
> Hi Robin and all,
> 
> On Nov 30, 2006, at 12:31 PM, Robin Dunn wrote:
> 
>> Hi folks,
>>
>> I just wanted to give all of you a heads up that wxWidgets and 
>> wxPython 2.8.0 will be released sometime around next weekend in order 
>> to meet the new cut-off date for getting the release into Apple's 
>> hands for OSX 10.5.  So if any of you are planning on updates to your 
>> contributed modules, or want to get new modules contributed, now is 
>> the time to do it.  I would like to have everything ready to go by 1 
>> week from tomorrow.
> 
> Speaking of which, would anyone be interested in helping me test out the 
> wxAddons system I've been working on? It's a system for allowing 
> contributed modules to be dynamically upgradable, and for 
> non-contributed modules to be easily found/installed/managed. Think of a 
> CPAN or CheeseShop for wxPython components. The wxaddons module is 
> included in the wxPython preview release Robin released on Thursday, and 
> the guts of it are ready to go. (I'm still working on the web site, 
> though.) Here's a quick FAQ:
> 
> 1) Why not just have the component installed into wx.lib?
> 
> Because things in wx.lib are only updated when wxPython is, and if 
> there's a significant bug, wxPython users are stuck with it. The only 
> alternatives are to hack an install routine to update wx.lib modules, or 
> require a separate import syntax  Things in wxaddons are dynamically 
> upgradable - even the components actually distributed with wxPython.
> 
> 2) How does the user install my component?
> 
> For right now, the easiest way is to do "import wxaddons; import 
> wxaddons.myModule". Unless the user has turned off component checking, 
> when wxaddons realizes the module doesn't exist, it will try querying 
> the wxaddons database for the component, and if it exists, it will 
> prompt the user to download the component. In other words, automated 
> dependency installation. ;-)
> 
> They can also download the source tarball themselves at any time, then 
> unpack it and do python setup.py install, just like any other distutils 
> module - only this module will go into the wxaddons module instead of 
> plain site-packages.
> 
> In the future, there will be a GUI for managing components, but 
> obviously the focus for 2.8 was getting the guts in good shape so that 
> Leopard users could use this system and would just have to download the 
> GUI later.
> 
> 3) What if I've got a wxaddon distributed with wxPython, but my app 
> needs a newer version than what's installed?
> 
> In this case, do "install wxaddons; 
> wxaddons.require_addon_version(name="myModule", version="1.0.0", 
> canBeNewer=True) # or false ;-)
> 
> This will use the same automated dependency installation logic, so if 
> the user doesn't have the version it will help them get it.
> 
> 4) So how do I get started?
> 
> Read this http://wxaddons.wxcommunity.com/wxaddon_guide.html. That has 
> all the info, and all the links, you need to create your own component.
> 
> 5) Is the web site really going to look plain like that?
> 
> I'm working on a design here, but I haven't worked out the system for 
> updating pages when the template is updated:
> 
> http://wxaddons.wxcommunity.com/index_draft.html
> 
> I might just go the typical PHP route and have header() and footer() 
> functions, as I need to be able to add various PHP bits throughout the 
> page, but I'm still looking at a way I can cleanly separate the template 
> into a plain HTML page. (Was that explanation too long? ;-)
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Kevin
> 
> 
> 
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