wxPython

About the Tutorial

wxPython is a blend of wxWidgets and Python programming library. This introductory
tutorial provides the basics of GUI programming and helps you create desktop GUI
applications.

Audience
This tutorial is designed for software programmers who are keen on learning how to
develop GUI applications for the desktop.

Prerequisites
You should have a basic understanding of computer programming terminologies. A basic
understanding of Python and any of the programming languages is a plus.

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 wxPython

Table of Contents
About the Tutorial .................................................................................................................................... i

Audience .................................................................................................................................................. i

Prerequisites ............................................................................................................................................ i

Disclaimer & Copyright............................................................................................................................. i

Table of Contents .................................................................................................................................... ii

1. WXPYTHON – INTRODUCTION............................................................................................. 1

2. WXPYTHON –ENVIRONMENT .............................................................................................. 2

Windows ................................................................................................................................................. 2

Linux ....................................................................................................................................................... 2

MacOS..................................................................................................................................................... 2

3. WXPYTHON – HELLO WORLD .............................................................................................. 3

4. WXPYTHON – FRAME CLASS ................................................................................................ 5

Window Style Constants ......................................................................................................................... 5

wx.Frame Class Member Functions ......................................................................................................... 6

wx.Frame event binders .......................................................................................................................... 6

5. WXPYTHON – PANEL CLASS ................................................................................................. 7

6. WXPYTHON – GUI BUILDER TOOLS ...................................................................................... 8

7. WXPYTHON – MAJOR CLASSES .......................................................................................... 12

8. WXPYTHON – EVENT HANDLING ....................................................................................... 15

9. WXPYTHON – LAYOUT MANAGEMENT .............................................................................. 20

10. WXPYTHON – BOXSIZER .................................................................................................... 21

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11. WXPYTHON – GRIDSIZER ................................................................................................... 26

12. WXPYTHON – FLEXIGRIDSIZER ........................................................................................... 29

13. WXPYTHON – GRIDBAGSIZER ............................................................................................ 32

14. WXPYTHON – STATICBOXSIZER.......................................................................................... 35

15. WXPYTHON – BUTTONS .................................................................................................... 38

16. WXPYTHON – STATICTEXT CLASS....................................................................................... 43

17. WXPYTHON – TEXTCTRL CLASS .......................................................................................... 47

18. WXPYTHON –RADIOBUTTON & RADIOBOX........................................................................ 51

19. WXPYTHON – CHECKBOX CLASS ........................................................................................ 55

20. WXPYTHON –COMBOBOX & CHOICE CLASS ...................................................................... 57

21. WXPYTHON – GAUGE CLASS.............................................................................................. 61

22. WXPYTHON – SLIDER CLASS .............................................................................................. 64

23. WXPYTHON – MENU ITEM, MENU & MENUBAR .............................................................. 67

24. WXPYTHON – TOOLBAR CLASS .......................................................................................... 72

25. WXPYTHON – DIALOG CLASS ............................................................................................. 76

MessageDialog ...................................................................................................................................... 77

wx.TextEntryDialog ............................................................................................................................... 79

wx.FileDialog Class ................................................................................................................................ 82

wx.FontDialog Class .............................................................................................................................. 86

26. WXPYTHON – NOTEBOOK CLASS ....................................................................................... 89

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27. WXPYTHON – DOCKABLE WINDOWS................................................................................. 93

28. WXPYTHON – MULTIPLE DOCUMENT INTERFACE ............................................................. 96

29. WXPYTHON – SPLITTERWINDOW CLASS............................................................................ 98

30. WXPYTHON – DRAWING API ........................................................................................... 101

wx.Colour Class ................................................................................................................................... 101

wx.Pen Class ....................................................................................................................................... 102

wx.Brush Class .................................................................................................................................... 102

31. WXPYTHON – HTMLWINDOW CLASS............................................................................... 105

32. WXPYTHON – LISTBOX & LISTCTRL CLASS ........................................................................ 107

33. WXPYTHON – DRAG AND DROP....................................................................................... 113

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 1. wxPython – Introduction wxPython

wxPython is a Python wrapper for wxWidgets (which is written in C++), a popular cross-
platform GUI toolkit. Developed by Robin Dunn along with Harri Pasanen, wxPython is
implemented as a Python extension module.

Just like wxWidgets, wxPython is also a free software. It can be downloaded from the official
website http://wxpython.org. Binaries and source code for many operating system platforms
are available for download on this site.

Principal modules in wxPython API include a core module. It consists of wxObject class,
which is the base for all classes in the API. Control module contains all the widgets used in
GUI application development. For example, wx.Button, wx.StaticText (analogous to a label),
wx.TextCtrl (editable text control), etc.

wxPython API has GDI (Graphics Device Interface) module. It is a set of classes used for
drawing on widgets. Classes like font, color, brush, etc. are a part of it. All the container
window classes are defined in Windows module.

Official website of wxPython also hosts Project Phoenix – a new implementation of wxPython
for Python 3.*. It focuses on improving speed, maintainability, and extensibility. The project
began in 2012 and is still in beta stage.

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 2. wxPython –Environment wxPython

Windows
Prebuilt binaries for Windows OS (both 32 bit and 64 bit) are available on
http://www.wxpython.org/download.php page. Latest versions of installers available are:

wxPython3.0-win32-3.0.2.0-py27.exe for 32-bit Python 2.7

wxPython3.0-win64-3.0.2.0-py27.exe for 64-bit Python 2.7

wxPython demo, samples and wxWidgets documentation is also available for download on the
same page.

wxPython3.0-win32-docs-demos.exe

Linux
wxPython binaries for many Linux distros can be found in their respective repositories.
Corresponding package managers will have to be used to download and install. For instance
on Debian Linux, following command should be able to install wxPython.

sudo apt-get install python-wxgtk3.0

MacOS
Prebuilt binaries for MacOS in the form of disk images are available on the download page of
the official website.

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 3. wxPython – Hello World wxPython

A simple GUI application displaying Hello World message is built using the following steps:

 Import wx module.

 Define an object of Application class.

 Create a top level window as object of wx.Frame class. Caption and size parameters
are given in constructor.

 Although other controls can be added in Frame object, their layout cannot be managed.
Hence, put a Panel object into the Frame.

 Add a StaticText object to display ‘Hello World’ at a desired position inside the window.

 Activate the frame window by show() method.

 Enter the main event loop of Application object.

import wx

app = wx.App()
window = wx.Frame(None,title="wxPython Frame",size=(300,200))
panel=wx.Panel(window)
label=wx.StaticText(panel,label="Hello World",pos=(100,50))
window.Show(True)
app.MainLoop()

The above code produces the following output:

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wxFrame object is the most commonly employed top level window. It is derived from
wxWindow class. A frame is a window whose size and position can be changed by the user.
It has a title bar and control buttons. If required, other components like menu bar, toolbar
and status bar can be enabled. A wxFrame window can contain any frame that is not a dialog
or another frame.

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 4. wxPython – Frame Class wxPython

wx.Frame Class has a default constructor with no arguments. It also has an overloaded
constructor with the following parameters:

Wx.Frame (parent, id, title, pos, size, style, name)

Parameter Description

Window parent. If ‘None’ is selected the object is at the top level

Parent window. If ‘None’ is not selected, the frame appears on top of the
parent window

Window identifier. Usually -1 to let the identifier be generated

id
automatically

Title Caption to appear in the title bar

The starting position of the frame. If not given, wxDefaultPosition is

Pos
as decided by OS

Size Dimensions of the window. wxDefaultSize is decided by OS

style Appearance of the window controlled by style constants

name The internal name of object

Window Style Constants

wx.DEFAULT_FRAME_STYLE

wx.CAPTION

wx.MINIMIZE_BOX

wx.MAXIMIZE_BOX

wx.CLOSE_BOX

wx.SYSTEM_MENU

wx.RESIZE_BORDER

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wx.STAY_ON_TOP

wx.FRAME_FLOAT_ON_PARENT

wx.DEFAULT_FRAME_STYLE is defined as:

wx.MINIMIZE_BOX | wx.MAXIMIZE_BOX | wx.RESIZE_BORDER | wx.SYSTEM_MENU |

wx.CAPTION | wx.CLOSE_BOX | wx.CLIP_CHILDREN

Example
window=wx.Frame(None, -1, “Hello”, pos=(10,10), size=(300,200), style=
wxDEFAULT_FRAME_STYLE, name=”frame”)

wx.Frame Class Member Functions

CreateStatusBar() Creates the status bar at bottom of the window

CreateToolBar() Creates the toolbar at the top or left of the window

GetMenuBar() Gets reference to menu bar

GetStatusBar() Gets reference to statusbar

SetMenuBar() Displays the menu bar object in the frame

setStatusBar() Associates the status bar object to the frame

SetToolBar() Associates a toolbar object to the frame

SetStatusText() Displays text on the status bar

Create() Creates a frame with provided parameters

Centre() Places the frame at the center of display

SetPosition() Places the frame at given screen coordinates

SetSize() Resizes the frame to given dimensions

SetTitle() Inserts the given text in the title bar

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wx.Frame event binders

When the frame is being closed by the user clicking
EVT_CLOSE
the close button or programmatically

EVT_MENU_OPEN When a menu is about to be opened

EVT_MENU_CLOSE When a menu has just been closed

When the menu item with the specified id has been

EVT_MENU_HIGHLIGHT
highlighted

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 5. wxPython – Panel Class wxPython

Widgets such as button, text box, etc. are placed on a panel window. wx.Panel class is
usually put inside a wxFrame object. This class is also inherited from wxWindow class.

Although controls can be manually placed on panel by specifying the position in screen
coordinates, it is recommended to use a suitable layout scheme, called sizer in wxPython, to
have better control over the placement and address the resizing issue.

In wxPanel constructor, the parent parameter is the wx.Frame object in which the panel is
to be placed. Default value of id parameter is wx.ID_ANY, whereas the default style parameter
is wxTAB_TRAVERSAL.

wxPython API has the following sizers, using which controls are added into a panel object:

wx.BoxSizer Widgets are arranged in a vertical or horizontal box

wx.StaticBoxSizer Adds a staticbox around the sizer

wx.GridSizer One control each added in equal sized cells of a grid

wx.FlexGridSizer Control added in cell grid can occupy more than one cell

Controls explicitly positioned in a grid and spanning over

wx.GridBagSizer more than one row and/or column

Sizer object is applied as the layout manager of the panel using SetSizer() method of wxPanel
class.

wx.Panel.SetSizer(wx.???Sizer())

Panel object in turn is added to the top level frame.

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 6. wxPython – GUI Builder Tools wxPython

Creating a good looking GUI by manual coding can be tedious. A visual GUI designer tool is
always handy. Many GUI development IDEs targeted at wxPython are available. Following are
some of them:

 wxFormBuilder

 wxDesigner

 wxGlade

 BoaConstructor

 gui2py

wxFormBuilder is an open source, cross-platform WYSIWYG GUI builder that can translate
the wxWidget GUI design into C++, Python, PHP or XML format. A brief introduction to usage
of wxFormBuilder is given here.

First of all the latest version of wxFormBuilder needs to be downloaded and installed from
http://sourceforge.net/projects/wxformbuilder/. On opening the application, a new project
with blank grey area at the center appears.

Give a suitable name to the project and choose Python as code generation language. This is
done in the Object properties window as shown in the following image:

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 wxPython

Then from ‘Forms’ tab of components palette, choose Frame.

Add a vertical wxBoxSizer from ‘Layouts’ tab.

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Add necessary controls in the Box with suitable captions. Here, a StaticText (label), two
TextCtrl objects (text boxes) and a wxButton object are added. The frame looks like the
following image:

Enable Expand and Stretch on these three controls. In the object properties for wxButton
object, assign a function findsquare() to OnButtonClick event.

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 wxPython

Save the project and press F8 to generate Python code for developed GUI. Let the generated
file be named as Demo.py

In the executable Python script, import demo.py and define FindSquare() function. Declare
Application object and start a main event loop. Following is the executable code:

import wx

#import the newly created GUI file

import demo

class CalcFrame(demo.MyFrame1):
def __init__(self,parent):
demo.MyFrame1.__init__(self,parent)

def FindSquare(self,event):
num = int(self.m_textCtrl1.GetValue())
self.m_textCtrl2.SetValue (str(num*num))

app = wx.App(False)
frame = CalcFrame(None)
frame.Show(True)

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 wxPython

#start the applications

app.MainLoop()

The above code produces the following output:

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 7. wxPython – Major Classes wxPython

Original wxWidgets (written in C++) is a huge class library. GUI classes from this library are
ported to Python with wxPython module, which tries to mirror the original wxWidgets library
as close as possible. So, wx.Frame class in wxPython acts much in the same way as wxFrame
class in its C++ version.

wxObject is the base for most of the classes. An object of wxApp (wx.App in wxPython)
represents the application itself. After generating the GUI, application enters in an event loop
by MainLoop() method. Following diagrams depict the class hierarchy of most commonly used
GUI classes included in wxPython.

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 8. wxPython – Event Handling wxPython

Unlike a console mode application, which is executed in a sequential manner, a GUI based
application is event driven. Functions or methods are executed in response to user’s actions
like clicking a button, selecting an item from collection or mouse click, etc., called events.

Data pertaining to an event which takes place during the application’s runtime is stored as
object of a subclass derived from wx.Event. A display control (such as Button) is the source
of event of a particular type and produces an object of Event class associated to it. For
instance, click of a button emits a wx.CommandEvent. This event data is dispatched to event
handler method in the program. wxPython has many predefined event binders. An Event
binder encapsulates relationship between a specific widget (control), its associated event
type and the event handler method.

For example, to call OnClick() method of the program on a button’s click event, the following
statement is required:

self.b1.Bind(EVT_BUTTON, OnClick)

Bind() method is inherited by all display objects from wx.EvtHandler class. EVT_.BUTTON
here is the binder, which associates button click event to OnClick() method.

Example
In the following example, the MoveEvent, caused by dragging the top level window – a
wx.Frame object in this case – is connected to OnMove() method using wx.EVT_MOVE
binder. The code displays a window. If it is moved using mouse, its instantaneous coordinates
are displayed on the console.

import wx

class Example(wx.Frame):

def __init__(self, *args, **kw):

super(Example, self).__init__(*args, **kw)
self.InitUI()

def InitUI(self):
self.Bind(wx.EVT_MOVE, self.OnMove)
self.SetSize((250, 180))
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self.SetTitle('Move event')
self.Centre()
self.Show(True)

def OnMove(self, e):

x, y = e.GetPosition()
print "current window position x=",x," y=",y

ex = wx.App()
Example(None)
ex.MainLoop()

The above code produces the following output:

current window position x= 562 y= 309

current window position x= 562 y= 309

current window position x= 326 y= 304

current window position x= 384 y= 240

current window position x= 173 y= 408

current window position x= 226 y= 30

current window position x= 481 y= 80

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Some of the subclasses inherited from wx.Event are listed in the following table:

wxKeyEvent Occurs when a key is presses or released

Is generated whenever contents of the window needs to be

wxPaintEvent
redrawn

Contains data about any event due to mouse activity like

wxMouseEvent
mouse button pressed or dragged

Associated with scrollable controls like wxScrollbar and

wxScrollEvent
wxSlider

Contains event data originating from many widgets such as

wxCommandEvent
button, dialogs, clipboard, etc.

Different menu-related events excluding menu command

wxMenuEvent
button click

wxColourPickerEvent wxColourPickerCtrl generated events

wxDirFileickerEvent Events generated by FileDialog and DirDialog

Events in wxPython are of two types. Basic events and Command events. A basic event stays
local to the window in which it originates. Most of the wxWidgets generate command events.
A command event can be propagated to window or windows, which are above the source
window in class hierarchy.

Example
Following is a simple example of event propagation. The complete code is:

import wx

class MyPanel(wx.Panel):

def __init__(self, parent):

super(MyPanel, self).__init__(parent)

b=wx.Button(self, label='Btn', pos=(100,100))

b.Bind(wx.EVT_BUTTON, self.btnclk)
self.Bind(wx.EVT_BUTTON, self.OnButtonClicked)

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def OnButtonClicked(self, e):

print 'Panel received click event. propagated to Frame class'

e.Skip()

def btnclk(self,e):
print "Button received click event. propagated to Panel class"
e.Skip()

class Example(wx.Frame):

def __init__(self,parent):
super(Example, self).__init__(parent)

self.InitUI()

def InitUI(self):

mpnl = MyPanel(self)
self.Bind(wx.EVT_BUTTON, self.OnButtonClicked)

self.SetTitle('Event propagation demo')

self.Centre()
self.Show(True)

def OnButtonClicked(self, e):

print 'click event received by frame class'

e.Skip()

ex = wx.App()

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Example(None)
ex.MainLoop()

In the above code, there are two classes. MyPanel, a wx.Panel subclass and Example, a
wx.Frame subclass which is the top level window for the program. A button is placed in the
panel.

This Button object is bound to an event handler btnclk() which propagates it to parent class
(MyPanel in this case). Button click generates a CommandEvent which can be propagated
to its parent by Skip() method.

MyPanel class object also binds the received event to another handler OnButtonClicked(). This
function in turn transmits to its parent, the Example class. The above code produces the
following output:

Button received click event. Propagated to Panel class.

Panel received click event. Propagated to Frame class.

Click event received by frame class.

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