Developing cross-platform applications with IronPython: GtkBuilder and Glade on IronPython

By Michael Foord -
IronPython is a great cross-platform development language, running on the Microsoft .NET framework for Windows and on Mono just about everywhere.

Even for CPython developers IronPython has a few features that make it of interest. These include:
  • Under IronPython there is no Global Interpreter Lock (GIL) meaning that multi-threaded pure-Python applications can scale across multiple CPUs with no extra work from the developer
  • .NET AppDomains allow you to create Python engines and restrict their security privileges, including controlling network and filesystem access and which assemblies the Python code can use
  • Easily create Python applications with multiple isolated Python engines in the same process
  • Easy to compile applications to binary and make binary only applications
  • Through the Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR) you get interoperability with languages like C# / F# / IronRuby and IronScheme
  • Extending IronPython with C#, for performance, is worlds easier than extending Python with C
For desktop application development a big question is what GUI framework to use if you want your application to run cross platform. Mono has a very complete implementation of Windows Forms, which is the standard .NET user interface on Windows. For Windows applications Windows Forms is good looking and easy to use, but by default on Linux and the Mac it isn't very attractive. It is useful for porting Windows applications but wouldn't be your first choice for a native Linux or Mac OS X application.

It definitely is possible to create good looking cross-platform applications with the Mono version of Windows Forms. Have a look at these screenshots of the Plastic SCM for an example. I haven't learned the requisite magic tricks to do this though.

There are at least two other alternatives: Qt (Qyoto) and Gtk (Gtk#).

Unfortunately there aren't yet good tutorials for developing with these user interface toolkits and IronPython, but these two blog entries will get you started with Glade and the GtkBuilder.

Someone asked me if I could add the missing parts of GtkBuilder in Gtk#Beans so he could use it with IronPython on mono.

Hey, it looks there's no missing parts ! It all works fine since day one. Here's the the trick...
Thanks to Stephane for his answer to my query about using GtkBuilder in IronPython. It turns out his Gtk#Beans package provides the magic sauce that is currently missing from the current stable release.

For completeness, here’s the code I sent him that accomplishes the same thing using the older Glade.XML object for those that are interested. It answers a long standing mailing list question about using Glade.XML.Autoconnect in IronPython...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Extending Abobe Flash Player and AIR with Python and Ruby

By Michael Foord -
An intriguing blog entry about an Adobe experimental project. It is a C/C++ cross- compiler for the flash player and AIR. This means that you can (will be able to?) cross-compile the Python / Ruby/ lots of other language runtimes and then run them in Flash. The blog entry contrasts this approach to the DLR which requires the re-implementation of dynamic languages - hence IronPython and IronRuby. The project is already beyond proof-of concept, they even have Quake III cross-compiled and running in Flash. Extending Adobe Flash Player and AIR with C/C++ Cross-Compiler Quake 3 has already been ported to managed code , but this is even more impressive. Whether the Python interpreter can be cross-compiled to run on top of another runtime (with completely different basic types), without changing the language semantics at all, has yet to be proved - but it is a very interesting project. (It also means that Python/Ruby will possibly be enabled only by additional optional downloads - but don'
Read more

IronPython Tools for Visual Studio CTP3

By Michael Foord -
At PyCon this year Dino Veihland announced IronPython Tools for Visual Studio, an extension to Visual Studio 2010 for working with IronPython. It features Python syntax highlighting, awesome auto-complete (intellisense) and a host of other features for working with IronPython code in Visual Studio. It can be used with the free Visual Studio shell and doesn't require you to own a full copy of Visual Studio. The third CTP (Community Technology Preview) has been made available for download. IronPython Tools for Visual Studio We are happy to announce a minor update to the IronPython Tools for Visual Studio.  IronPython Tools for Visual Studio (IPyTools) is a set of extensions available for Visual Studio 2010 which supports development of IronPython applications.  This release is our 3rd Community Technical Preview (CTP) and builds upon the previous two releases.  The release is a minor update which includes bug fixes and a number of small features.  You can download the latest rel
Read more

Further Adventures of the Debugger

By Michael Foord -
Harry Pierson (Microsoft IronPython PM) has been experimenting with writing an IronPython debugger ( ipydbg ) on top of the .NET MDbg APIs. When we last left him , he had implemented Just My Code (JMC) support allowing you to step into IronPython code. Since then he has made a lot of progress including a colourful REPL (interactive console) and solving some difficult problems around getting to real values behind boxed IronPython variables (needed for showing local variables). He has blogged extensively on what he has been up to (more recent posts last): Showing Source Code Colorful Console IronPython ConsoleColorMgr (the colorful console code pulled out into a separate IronPython module) A Little Hack...err...Cleanup Getting Local Variables Displaying Values Command Routing Getting Arguments REPL Console A lot of functionality is now present. In the command routing entry Harry outlines the seven commands supported by the debugger so far: Continue, Quit, Show Stack Trace, Show Locals,
Read more