How is the Python GUI being developed today (September / 2010)?

Question

The last time I saw Python GUIs were extremely ugly, like it is today?

(saw beautiful images on google images, but I don't know if this is really Python)

Answer 1

Python 2.7 and 3.0 come with tk (ttk) theme widgets that look much better than previous versions of Tk (although, to be honest, any competent GUI developer can make an even older Tk good). Do not let people who know little about how Tk affect its use, it is still a very viable toolkit for many, many tasks. You will not create a Photoshop clone with it, but how many people write these applications anyway?

I have been using wxPython over the past year and will continue to choose Tkinter for most tasks. Tkinter is much simpler and in many ways more powerful. The only advantage of wxWidgets is that it has more built-in widgets, but many of them are a little erroneous and difficult to use. For most of the applications that most people will write, Tkinter is still a great choice.

Some screenshots of theme widgets are available here:

http://code.google.com/p/python-ttk/wiki/Screenshots

Here is a screenshot of the Tkinter application that uses themed widgets on Mac:

http://www.codebykevin.com/phynchronicity-running.png

Answer 2

Tk is the default GUI toolkit for Python, but it supports a theme from Python 2.7 / 3.1. It is not as ugly as before.

However, you can use some nice alternatives that still look better (IMHO) and have more functionality:

• wxPython: perhaps the most used, cross-platform and all, your applications will look the same as native.
• PyQt, or soon PySide: Nokia Qt open source framework bindings. There is more than just a GUI toolkit.
• PyGTK: bindings for GTK + libraries

Read more ... http://wiki.python.org/moin/GuiProgramming

Answer 3

Python has bindings for Tk, Qt, GTK, wx, and many others. There is no reason for it to be worse than another language. You are probably thinking of gui made with Tk, which has a reputation for being ugly. It is not specific to python, but may be more common because it is very simple and comes with python by default.

For more information, see Gui Programming in the python wiki.

Answer 4

I think the latest version of Tkinter offers its own look at Macos. WxPython and QT offer their own look and feel for macos, windows, and linux. GTK abit is ugly and crashing on a Mac due to the X11 leaking there.

Of course, you could create your own GUI, something I'm trying to do with pygame. Let me clarify, I am not making the GUI library just a GUI for my own application. I am making graphics in a Blender 3D application.

My vote for the universal graphical interface goes to wxPython, tried it, looks great, easy to use and works like a charm between platforms. You will also find a ton of information about this. Integrates well with opengl, so if you want to make extreme guis on it, it can do them.