Every now and then, someone will ask about how they can run the demo code from wxPython’s demo outside of the demo. In other words, they wonder how you can extract the code from the demo and run it in your own. I think I wrote about this very topic quite some time ago on the wxPython wiki, but I thought I should write on the topic here as well.

What to do about the log

The first issue that I always see is that the demo code is riddled with calls to some kind of log. It’s always writing to that log to help the developer see how different events get fired or how different methods get called. This is all well and good, but it makes just copying the code out of the demo difficult. Let’s take the code from the wx.ListBox demo as an example and see if we can make it work outside of the demo. Here is the demo code: Continue reading How to Use wxPython Demo Code Outside the Demo →

Most applications come with the Status Bar. The status bar is the widget along the bottom of most applications that you use every day. They give you information about what line you’re editing in a text editor or when you last saved. In wxPython, you can add a status bar to your frame by using the wx.StatusBar class. In this article, we will learn all about how to use status bars in wxPython.

No Status Bars

It’s always good to start at the beginning. So we will begin our journey by looking at some sample code that shows what a frame looks like without a status bar:

import wx
 
class MainFrame(wx.Frame):
 
    def __init__(self):
        wx.Frame.__init__(self, None, title='No Statusbars')
 
        panel = wx.Panel(self)
 
        self.Show()
 
if __name__ == '__main__':
    app = wx.App(False)
    frame = MainFrame()
    app.MainLoop()

When you run this code, you should see something like the following:

Continue reading wxPython: Working with Status Bars →

The wxPython GUI toolkit comes with many widgets. A common control is a tree widget. wxPython has several different tree widgets, including the regular wx.TreeCtrl, the newer DVC_TreeCtrl and the pure Python variants, CustomTreeCtrl and HyperTreeList. In this article, we will focus on the regular wx.TreeCtrl and learn the basics of how to create and use one.

Creating a Simple Tree

Creating a TreeCtrl is actually quite easy. The wxPython demo has a fairly complex example, so I wasn’t able to use it here. Instead I ended up taking the demo example and stripping it down as much as I could. Here’s the result:

import wx
 
class MyTree(wx.TreeCtrl):
 
    def __init__(self, parent, id, pos, size, style):
        wx.TreeCtrl.__init__(self, parent, id, pos, size, style)
 
 
class TreePanel(wx.Panel):
 
    def __init__(self, parent):
        wx.Panel.__init__(self, parent)
 
        self.tree = MyTree(self, wx.ID_ANY, wx.DefaultPosition, wx.DefaultSize,
                           wx.TR_HAS_BUTTONS)    
 
        self.root = self.tree.AddRoot('Something goes here')
        self.tree.SetPyData(self.root, ('key', 'value'))
        os = self.tree.AppendItem(self.root, 'Operating Systems')
        self.tree.Expand(self.root)
 
        sizer = wx.BoxSizer(wx.VERTICAL)
        sizer.Add(self.tree, 0, wx.EXPAND)
        self.SetSizer(sizer)
 
 
class MainFrame(wx.Frame):
 
    def __init__(self):
        wx.Frame.__init__(self, parent=None, title='TreeCtrl Demo')
        panel = TreePanel(self)
        self.Show()
 
 
if __name__ == '__main__':
    app = wx.App(redirect=False)
    frame = MainFrame()
    app.MainLoop()

In this example, we create a subclass of wx.TreeCtrl that doesn’t do anything. Then we create a panel subclass where we instantiate the tree and add a root and sub-item. Finally we create the frame that holds the panel and run the application. You should end up with something that looks similar to the following:

This is a pretty boring example, so let’s make something a bit more interesting. Continue reading wxPython: Learning about TreeCtrls →