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Python @ Web Programming
Programming Shed : Programmer Store & Resources |
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Python Index - Python Book :
Python and Tkinter Programming
by John E. Grayson Paperback: 688 pages Dimensions (in inches): 1.42 x 9.19 x 7.37 Publisher: Manning Publications Company ISBN: 1884777813; 1st edition (January 2000) Books on graphical user interfaces (GUI) have an unfair advantage over typical computer books. Their contents have immediate positive impact on everything they touch, from the popularity of the underlying language to the careers of the developers they reach. Even mediocre GUI books have a beneficial impact. John E. Grayson's deeply thought out, maturely written Python and Tkinter Programming does the double service of being a excellent object-oriented GUI book and communicating the standard for Tk-widget-based GUI development to the Python community. The short-term result will be a rapid expansion in the popularity of Python itself; the long-term result will be a new batch of supportable, reusable code. Grayson begins with a three-line "hello world" variant that works out of the box. He moves quickly to a variety of GUI calculators to exhibit buttons and label widgets. Familiarity with Tk from Tcl/Tk or Perl/Tk is helpful but not essential. The convenient bonus of the Python implementation is its inclusion in the standard Python release, of which the current stable version is 1.5. Nearly half of the book is dedicated to Tk widget implementations and constitutes a translation of Tk into Python. By itself, it is a good teaching tool for students of Python who already know Tk in one of its other manifestations. Appendices covering build/install issues Python megawidgets and a Tkinter reference manual comprise nearly 40 percent of the book, leaving a brief 15 percent for the introductory tutorial, application building, and performance tuning. A late chapter on threads suggests a broad range of client/server applications, but is too brief to be more than a tease. Throughout the text, code snippets are presented in coherent blocks with annotations sensibly appearing as clearly numbered end notes to those blocks. Grayson presents cross-platform issues with maturity and candor. While Python for Windows and Macintosh environments is stable, he asserts, the Tkinter module does not have the same global look-and-feel control. Fonts and colors are dictated partially by the platform OS. The subtle challenge for developers is to develop supportable code in the breakneck boss-pleasing, GUI-driven environment. Grayson's elegant introduction to Tkinter advances the subtext of supportability noticeably farther along. By documenting Tkinter, he will push a group of laggard hackers to learn object-oriented principles. And that may be his lasting contribution. --Peter Leopold From Book News, Inc.: This guide shows experienced Python programmers how to add graphical user interfaces (GUIs) to their applications, featuring fully functional examples with code annotations. Topics include panels and machines, drawing blobs and rubber lines, graphs and charts, debugging applications, and threads and asynchronous techniques. A concluding reference section lists classes, methods, and options.Book News, Inc.®, Portland, OR Peter Leopold, Amazon.co.uk: "deeply thought, maturely written...does the double service of being a excellent object-oriented GUI book and communicating the standard..." CompBookReview.com: Until now, this level of documentation has not been available to Tkinter programmers.... comp.lang.python newsgroup: ...the very best resource for Tkinter programming there is—and if you use another toolkit, then it's still full of insight, useful advice and inspiration. Book Info: Provides a real-world code that does real work: no toy examples. Documents Tkinter in a reference section that is helpful and easy to use. Customer Reviews Reviewer: A reader from Lawrence, Ks USA Before I even reviewing this title, I have to come out and admit that this book sits on my desk at work. I keep it within an arms reach whenever working on Python GUIs. First, I felt that this was a pretty good book as far as the instruction of Tkinter goes. It assumes you have at least a basic understanding of Python, so you may want to learn the language before diving into it. There are three aspects of the book that I think deserve special attention: the examples, special topics covered, an how the book is broken up. It has no shortage of examples for each of the various widgets, and provides well commented code. The one complaint I have here is that the descriptive comments are all at the end of the code, so I frequently found myself flipping back and forth between the code and the comments. It also priovides several examples of common situations you may run across: dynamically changing widgets, "smart" widgets, and issues regarding GUI overhead. The first part of the book concentrates on looking under the hood of Tkinter and learning how to interact with its components and get applications running. The second part of the book spends is more of a textbook on the design of more effective/attractive interfaces. Secondly, the book is also an above-average reference manual. It has two colored sections that outline all of the widgets in standard Tkinter and Pmw (Python Mega-widgets). I find this especially usefull because once you learn the basics of the Tkinter system, you really only need a manual that reminds you of how to get the right widget you want. I think in the course of using the reference manual I've only found two errors, which is pretty good for around 175 pages of material. Reviewer: Alessandro Bottoni from Ferrara, Italy "Python and TKinter programming" is the kind of book that is very hard to find in a bookstore nowadays. This book is not just a gap-filling, long-awaited tome, full of valuable information regarding a scarcely documented technology. It is a well-designed, carefully edited and clearly written book, too. Since the first pages, it becames clear that Grayson is an expert programmer and a talented technical writer. He does not only demonstrate a complete dominance of the Python and TKinter programming but he also shows an attention for the reader that is rare to see in this world. The whole book, and every single part of it, are carefully designed and written to help the programmer in the learning process and in the everyday work. Also Manning, the publisher, made a very good work with this book, (as with all the book of this series). Consider to buy this book because: - It is an exhaustive guide to Python and TKinter programming. No "shadow zones" left. - It contains 14Mb of working and well written code (available online). You can play and learn from it. - It is well-organized, carefully edited and clearly written. No struggles to get the info you need. - It is a first-hand report from the world of real professional programming. No kid tales. - You get a real understanding of Python and TKinter programming from this book, not a simple, dry description of this language. The best characteristic of this book is its clear and flexible structure: you are not forced to follow the "flow-of-consciousness" of the author, chapter after chapter (Have you ever read "Programming Python", by Mark Lutz? ). You can easily spot and read the part that most interest you. All of the chapters focus on well-defined aspects of the Python/TKinter programming and are quite indipendent from the other ones. Grayson's writing is always clear and well-organized. You do not have to struggle for extracting the information you need. This is a book designed with a demanding and busy reader in mind. I hope to see more from Grayson and Manning in the future. Reviewer: Jack Trainor from San Francisco, CA United States I have programmed several commercial Macintosh and Windows applications and I have become fairly proficient with Python, so I figured that writing GUIs with Tkinter would be pretty straightforward and Grayson's book looked like a great place to start. Not so. While it's fine to have lots of code samples, what would have been even better was much more nitty-gritty discussion of Tk itself. Tk is very clever and powerful, but it is not straightforward. This is even more true of Megawidgets, upon which Pmw is based, and which is widely used in Grayson's examples. The appendices at the end are great if you know exactly what you are looking up but frustrating if you don't have a good overview of how Tk works. I recommend Effective Tcl/Tk Programming by Harrison and McLennan to fill in some of the many gaps in Grayson. Reviewer: A reader from Arvada, CO It is a great book for doing the most simple of GUI tasks and for a reference once you have been using Tkinter for an extended period of time. The book leaves out key definitions when they are most needed, isn't organized well and generally falls short when you really start getting interested. Don't get this book if you are trying translate other GUI skills to Tkinter. It is good for learning the absolute basics and as a reference. |
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