wxPython Project Status
The purpose of this page is to give a brief synopsis of the current status of the wxPython project and is to serve as a convenient place for folks to go to learn about current release status and also what's coming down the pipe from the wxPython project.
Last Update: 14-June-2005
wxWidgets
It should be noted that wxPython is built on top of the C++ library known as wxWidgets which is a cross platform application framework library, providing abstractions of natvie GUIs, as well as other things needed for cross platform C++ development such as abstractions for threads, files, sockets, unicode and ansi character encodings, etc. wxPython provides Python wrappers primarily for just the GUI classes provided by wxWidgets and expects Python programmers to use standard Python modules for the other types of functionality. RobinDunn, the main wxPython developer, is also highly involved with the wxWidgets project.
Current Release
The current release is 2.6.1.0 and was released on June 4, 2005. A change-log of sorts is available from the wxPython home page here: http://wxpython.org/recentchanges.php. Probably also of interest is the ReleaseSeries page which describes what the wxPython version numbers mean.
Next Release
It's possible that I'll be ready to so a 2.6.1.1 release soon with a few bug-fixes and etc. added since the 2.6.1.0 release. There has been no talk yet of when the next wxWidgets release will be so we may be doing a few 2.6.1.x wxPython releases. I'm also still working on fleshing out some more docstrings for the new Python-specific documentation.
A list of changes for the upcoming release that are visible in wxPython can be seen in the CVS version of the CHANGES doc.
Major Tasks
Some of the major tasks (some are long term, ongoing items) on my todo list are:
Build System: Migrate away from using the distutils tool for building wxPython to instead use autoconf/makefiles on posix systems and MS Visual Studio project files on Windows. In many cases distutils is fine but for something as complex as the needs of wxPython it just doesn't measure up very well. Will probably use the bakefile tool (which is what wxWidgets is using) to generate the makefile and project files from a common configuration.
wxPython Book: The 3rd set of reviews are in, and I am working on reverifying the source code for the samples and spot checking chapters for technical accuracy, while Noel is working on finishing up some writing tasks.
wx.MediaCtrl: Ensure that the issues with wx.MediaCtrl on OSX not being a real control get resolved. (It is always on top of the frame, no matter if it's immediate parent is visible or not, etc.)
wxPython Docs: Continue adding content to the Python-specific reference docs for wxPython, see a recent snapshot here. Much of the documentation framework that is already available is autogenerated by some custom modifications that I did to SWIG, and run through a slightly customized epydoc. So it is just the guts of the content that needs to be added and I work on that in little spurts as time goes by.
PIL integration?: Many developers would like to have a way to convert from a PIL Image to a wx.Bitmap in a quick and efficient manner. Spend some more time to see if there is a way to do this at the C/C++ level.
wx.Sizer API Changes: There is a new (optional) way to add items to sizers in the C++ code that seems a bit easier for the programmer to understand. Find a way to add this to wxPython without breaking the current API. (This will be tricky since the C++ code uses overloading.)
wx.RawBitmap support?: The C++ code has a new way to efficiently access the raw image data in a wx.Bitmap. Can this be exposed to wxPython in a way that doesn't lose much effeciency?
Scintilla 1.63 Upgrade: Also check if Otto's fork of wxStyledTextCtrl has added anything worth backporting to my version.