On Thu, 05 Oct 2006 14:18, you wrote: > To answer the original Question: > > Yes, I've used VB (well, mainly VBA) - contact me off list. > > On the subject of Linux / open source alternatives, I would like to > find an alternative to VB that has a development environment with a > context sensitive help / reference system. I want to be able to get > help on the objects available and language elements. I've learned too > many languages and am often needing to find the correct form of the > case/ select statement for example! > > Suggestions so far include: > wxPython > ironPython > Gambas > > how would these rate?
It's your lucky day! Python has no case/select statment, so you need to search no longer for the correct form!! =;^) Anyway, to answer your question, wxPython is not a development environment. wxPython is a GUI library with a Python syntax. Or rather, it is the wxWidgets library with Python bindings. There are three development environments I briefly looked at for wxPython: 1) wxGlade 2) Stani's Python Editor 3) Boa Constructor I chose the last one. It does have context sensitive help, and code completion. I also use a thing called (wait, let me check) a "book", and of course Google. The thing about Python is that you don't need a GUI for development, you could use notepad (or emacs if you *had* to), but for wxPython (building forms and dialogs) it really helps to be able to see what you have made as you are making it. Boa Constructor allows you to 'draw' your GUI, in much the same way as VB, and that's what you really need. I have found incompleteness and inconsistencies with the wxPython documentation online, but don't let that stop you. Besides, in the time it's taken you to follow this discussion you could have downloaded some of this stuff and tried it out for yourself. Boa Constructor has a small tutorial that is worth following to ease you into GUI development with Python, and as I said, the wxPython demo is a great showcase of the wxWidget capabilities, plus the demo code is well written in such a way that you can quickly learn from it. Have fun! A
