[wxPython-users] Detecting the desktop environment (gnome, kde, ...)

[Christopher Barker]

Stani's Python Editor wrote:
> Playing around with Ubuntu and Kubuntu, I noticed that there are far to 
> many cosmetic differences between the two. Things which look fine in 
> Ubuntu, are clipped in Kubuntu, etc... I was wondering what kind of 
> solutions people use here on the list to know which DE is being used and 
> if possible post some code.

It's probably not the DE, so much as the theme. On any *nix system, wx 
is using wxGTK, which will pick up the default GTK theme. As there are a 
lot of themes out there, it's probably best not to try to detect which 
DE you have, and hope that the theme is use is the default one for that 
system.

I'm guessing that Kubuntu is using a gtk theme that "looks like QT" 
while Ubuntu is using something they like for GNOME.

Anyway, the promise of sizers and themes is that you should have to 
worry about any of that!. Particularly things getting clipped. If 
something is getting clipped there is a bug in:

a) your sizer code
b) the wx sizer code
c) wxGTK
d) GTK
e) the GTK theme in use.

That's quite a cascade! Ideally you'd be able to figure out where the 
bug is, and report it appropriately.

That could be a lot of work (and take a while for the bug to get 
resolved and the fix work its way to people's desktops), so in the 
meantime maybe you can detect the theme, and have ugly hacks to work 
with the most common ones.

Darn, what a pain!

-Chris




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