Keyword wxpywf

2007-01-11 filetagger wxpython wxpywf appaweek

At long last, I managed to finish development on a first cut of the filetagger application. It took far longer than I really wanted it to, because I spent an inordinate amount of time whipping the wxpywf framework into shape (about a month) and so the whole "app a week" thing is more like "an app per five weeks" or so. Ha.

But you know what? I did it! I actually brought a major new module of the wftk, one I'd been thinking about for three years, to the point where it can be used. Wow.

So I'm glad I took the time to do it the way I wanted to do it.

Here are some of the features of wxpywf I created and used for this app:

XML definition of the entire UI of an application, using frames and dialogs. In comparison with the traditional call-by-call technique for setting up a wxPython UI, this is incredibly convenient.
Application-specific code grouped into simple commands.
Each frame and each dialog automatically binds to an XML record which can be addressed on a field-by-field basis.
HTML can be used for more textual interfaces; links generate commands which can have arbitrary effects on the UI (in this case, clicking on a link in the tag cloud switches the tabbed frame to the file list and displays the files with the tag selected.)
So far, the UI can include tabsets, list controls, HTML windows, rich text controls, checkboxes, radio button groups and listboxes, command buttons, and static text.

There's a lot of ground still to cover. But in my experience, that kind of ground can be covered in small, manageable steps after initial usability is there. And initial usability is definitely there. I feel really happy about this.

Filetagger posted

2007-01-28 filetagger wxpywf appaweek

I posted v1.0 of the filetagger in the new PyPop format. The XML definition of the app is 310 lines and about 12K. I think this could end up being quite useful.

The code is here -- I don't have the actual running PyPop up to run it, though. I still want to get registration of file extensions working -- oh, yeah, and what there is of the help system. The help text is included but there's no command to display it yet.

If I end up defining a basic XSLT processor on top of the XMLAPI, this could start to get really interesting...

PyPop v0.1 released

2007-02-02 wxpywf pypop appaweek code_generators

Finally! I've been pretty busy with the paying work this last week, and also with biochemistry due to my son's kidney/allergy problems, and so lowly open-source work has suffered.

But the PyPop GUI framework is ready to download in a convenient NSIS installer. Rather than host it, I've put it up onto the the SourceForge download page for your downloading pleasure.

Once it's installed, download the filetagger app definition and play around with it. It's all still pretty crude, but I'm having fun. Did I mention that this actually involves the on-the-fly generation of a Python class based on the XML application definition, which is then instantiated in the GUI to do the work? That was fun!

Anyway, more later. I'm still on week #3 of the app-a-week thing, for, um, the second or third week. Maybe I'll slowly approach an app a week as I get this stuff under control. Wish me luck!