An Alternative to wxWizard

Introduction

Wizards are a familiar form of dialogs for Windows users. wxWizard is the wrapper for them that is included with wxPython.

This recipe offers an alternative to wxWizard which features visible internals and that may be easier to understand and modify.

What Objects are Involved

This recipe does not define a new wizard class. Rather wizards are based on instances of wxDialog, and each page or panel of a wizard is defined as a subclass of WizardPanel, which is just a subclass of wxPanel.

Process Overview

Define one subclass of WizardPanel for each panel (or page) in your wizard. The controls you need that are specific to one panel must have 'subpanel' of WizardPanel as their parent.
At the point in your code where you need to display the wizard create an instance of wxDialog, instantiate the first panel of your wizard so that it is associated with the wxDialog instance and show the dialog.
When you need to display a different panel in the wizard, perhaps in response to a 'next' button, destroy the previous panel, instantiate the new panel, and refresh the wxDialog by hiding it, then showing it again.

Code Sample

   1 from wxPython.wx import *
   2 
   3 class WizardPanel ( wxPanel ) :
   4 
   5     def __init__ ( self, parent ) :
   6 
   7         wxPanel . __init__ ( self, parent, -1 )
   8 
   9         self . parent = parent
  10 
  11         self . nextButton = wxButton ( self, -1, "&Next" )
  12         self . previousButton = wxButton ( self, -1, "&Previous" )
  13         self . cancelButton = wxButton ( self, wxID_CANCEL, "&Cancel" )
  14         self . CreateSubPanel ( )
  15         self . divider = wxStaticLine ( self, -1 )
  16 
  17         self . previousButton . Disable ( )
  18         self . nextButton . Disable ( )
  19 
  20         self . DefineLayout ( )
  21 
  22     def DefineLayout ( self ) :
  23 
  24         self . SetAutoLayout ( True )
  25 
  26         lc = wxLayoutConstraints ( )
  27         lc . left . SameAs ( self . parent, wxLeft )
  28         lc . right . SameAs ( self . parent, wxRight )
  29         lc . top . SameAs ( self . parent, wxTop )
  30         lc . bottom . SameAs ( self . parent, wxBottom )
  31         self . SetConstraints ( lc )
  32 
  33         lc = wxLayoutConstraints ( )
  34         lc . right . SameAs ( self, wxRight, 10 )
  35         lc . width . AsIs ( )
  36         lc . height . AsIs ( )
  37         lc . bottom . SameAs ( self, wxBottom, 10 )
  38         self . nextButton . SetConstraints ( lc )
  39 
  40         lc = wxLayoutConstraints ( )
  41         lc . right . SameAs ( self . nextButton, wxLeft, 10 )
  42         lc . width . AsIs ( )
  43         lc . height . AsIs ( )
  44         lc . bottom . SameAs ( self, wxBottom, 10 )
  45         self . previousButton . SetConstraints ( lc )
  46 
  47         lc = wxLayoutConstraints ( )
  48         lc . right . SameAs ( self . previousButton, wxLeft, 10 )
  49         lc . width . AsIs ( )
  50         lc . height . AsIs ( )
  51         lc . bottom . SameAs ( self, wxBottom, 10 )
  52         self . cancelButton . SetConstraints ( lc )
  53 
  54         lc = wxLayoutConstraints ( )
  55         lc . right . SameAs ( self, wxRight, 10 )
  56         lc . left . SameAs ( self, wxLeft, 10 )
  57         lc . height . AsIs ( )
  58         lc . bottom . SameAs ( self . nextButton, wxTop, 10 )
  59         self . divider . SetConstraints ( lc )
  60 
  61         lc = wxLayoutConstraints ( )
  62         lc . right . SameAs ( self, wxRight, 10 )
  63         lc . left . SameAs ( self, wxLeft, 10 )
  64         lc . top . SameAs ( self, wxTop, 10 )
  65         lc . bottom . SameAs ( self . divider, wxTop, 10 )
  66         self . subpanel . SetConstraints ( lc )
  67 
  68     def CreateSubPanel ( self ) :
  69 
  70         self . subpanel = wxPanel ( self, -1 )
  71 
  72 if __name__ == "__main__" :
  73 
  74     class WizardPanelOne ( WizardPanel ) :
  75 
  76         def __init__ ( self, parent ) :
  77 
  78             WizardPanel . __init__ ( self, parent )
  79             self . parent = parent
  80 
  81             self . nextButton . Enable ( true )
  82 
  83             self . reconvertCheckbox = wxCheckBox ( self . subpanel, -1, "Reconvert file?" )
  84 
  85     class WizardPanelTwo ( WizardPanel ) :
  86 
  87         def __init__ ( self, parent ) :
  88 
  89             WizardPanel . __init__ ( self, parent )
  90             self . parent = parent
  91 
  92             self . previousButton . Enable ( true )
  93 
  94             self . label = wxStaticText ( self . subpanel, -1, 'Yet more tedious questions' )
  95 
  96     class MainFrame ( wxFrame ) :
  97 
  98         def __init__ ( self, * args ) :
  99 
 100             wxFrame . __init__ ( self, * args )
 101 
 102             self . wizard = wxDialog ( self, -1, "Sample Alternative Wizard", style = wxCAPTION, size = ( 500, 500 ) )
 103             self . wizard . wizardpanel = WizardPanelOne ( self . wizard )
 104 
 105             EVT_BUTTON ( self . wizard, self . wizard . wizardpanel . nextButton . GetId ( ), self . OnNextButton )
 106 
 107             result = self . wizard . ShowModal ( )
 108 
 109             if result == wxID_OK :
 110                 print 'wizard ok'
 111 
 112         def OnNextButton ( self , event ) :
 113 
 114             self . wizard . wizardpanel . Destroy ( )
 115             self . wizard . wizardpanel = WizardPanelTwo ( self . wizard )
 116 
 117             self . wizard . Show ( false )
 118             self . wizard . ShowModal ( )
 119 
 120             event . Skip ( )
 121 
 122     app = wxPySimpleApp ( )
 123     frame = MainFrame ( None, wxNewId ( ), 'Trial run' )
 124 
 125     frame . Show ( )
 126     app . MainLoop ( )

Comments

I welcome your comments. - Bill Bell