Python Programming On Win32

wxWindows + Python = wxPython

wxPython is a Python extension module that provides a set of bindings from the wxWindows library to the Python language. In other words, the extension module allows Python programers to create instances of wxWindows classes and to invoke methods of those classes.

The wxPython extension module attempts to mirror the class hierarchy of wxWindows as closely as possible. This means that there is a wxFrame class in wxPython that looks, smells, tastes, and acts almost the same as the wxFrame class in the C++ version.

wxPython is close enough to the C++ version that the majority of the wxPython documentation is actually annotations to the C++ documentation that describe the places where wxPython is different. There is also a series of sample programs included, and a series of documentation pages that assist the programmer in getting started with wxPython.

Where to get wxPython

The latest version of wxPython can always be found at http://alldunn.com/wxPython/. From this site you can download a self-installer for Win32 systems that includes a prebuilt extension module, documentation in HTML help format, and a set of demos.

Also available from this site is a Linux RPM, wxPython sources, documentation in raw HTML, and pointers to other sites, mail lists, the wxPython FAQ, and so forth.

If you want to build wxPython from sources yourself, you also need the wxWindows sources, available from http://www.wxwindows.org/.

Where to go from here

The remainder of this chapter ...