Metadata-Version: 1.1
Name: python2-pythondialog
Version: 3.3.0
Summary: A Python interface to the UNIX dialog utility and mostly-compatible programs (Python 2 backport)
Home-page: http://pythondialog.sourceforge.net/
Author: Florent Rougon
Author-email: f.rougon@free.fr
License: UNKNOWN
Download-URL: http://sourceforge.net/projects/pythondialog/files/pythondialog/3.3.0/python2-pythondialog-3.3.0.tar.bz2
Description: ===============================================================================
        Python wrapper for the UNIX "dialog" utility
        ===============================================================================
        Easy writing of graphical interfaces for terminal-based applications
        -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        
        WARNING
        -------
        
        This version is a backport of pythondialog to Python 2. Unless you
        *really* have to use Python 2, you should go to the `pythondialog home
        page`_ and download the reference implementation which, at the time of
        this writing (May 2015) and for the forseeable future, is targeted
        at Python 3.
        
        .. _pythondialog home page: http://pythondialog.sourceforge.net/
        
        This version is only here to help users who are somehow forced to still
        use Python 2, even though Python 3.0 was released on December 3, 2008.
        It may be the last update for Python 2. In addition, the reference
        implementation is less likely to have bugs.
        
        Before using this backport, be sure to read the `Backport-specific
        notes`_ below.
        
        
        Overview
        --------
        
        pythondialog is a Python wrapper for the UNIX dialog_ utility
        originally written by Savio Lam and later rewritten by Thomas E. Dickey.
        Its purpose is to provide an easy to use, pythonic and as complete as
        possible interface to dialog_ from Python code.
        
        .. _dialog: http://invisible-island.net/dialog/dialog.html
        
        pythondialog is free software, licensed under the GNU LGPL (GNU Lesser
        General Public License). Its home page is located at:
        
          http://pythondialog.sourceforge.net/
        
        and contains a `short example`_, screenshots_, a `summary of the recent
        changes`_, links to the `documentation`_, the `Git repository`_, the
        `mailing list`_, the `issue tracker`_, etc.
        
        .. _short example:  http://pythondialog.sourceforge.net/#example
        .. _screenshots:    http://pythondialog.sourceforge.net/gallery.html
        .. _summary of the recent changes:
                            http://pythondialog.sourceforge.net/news.html
        .. _documentation:  http://pythondialog.sourceforge.net/doc/
        .. _Git repository: https://sourceforge.net/p/pythondialog/code/
        .. _mailing list:   https://sourceforge.net/p/pythondialog/mailman/
        .. _issue tracker:  https://sourceforge.net/p/pythondialog/_list/tickets
        
        If you want to get a quick idea of what this module allows one to do,
        you can download a release tarball and run ``demo.py``::
        
          PYTHONPATH=. python2 examples/demo.py
        
        Notes:
        
          - the preceding command uses ``python2`` because we want to use the
            Python 2 backport of pythondialog;
          - depending on your system, you may have to replace ``python2`` with
            ``python`` or ``python2.7``, for instance.
        
        
        What is pythondialog good for? What are its limitations?
        --------------------------------------------------------
        
        As you might infer from the name, dialog is a high-level program that
        generates dialog boxes. So is pythondialog. They allow you to build nice
        interfaces quickly and easily, but you don't have full control over the
        widgets, nor can you create new widgets without modifying dialog itself.
        If you need to do low-level stuff, you should have a look at ncurses or
        slang instead. For sophisticated text-mode interfaces, the `Urwid Python
        library`_ looks rather interesting, too.
        
        .. _Urwid Python library: http://excess.org/urwid/
        
        
        Requirements
        ------------
        
        * This backport of pythondialog requires Python 2.6 or later in the 2.x
          series. It has been tested with Python 2.7.
        
        * The reference implementation supports more recent versions of the
          Python interpreter. Please visit the `pythondialog home page`_ for
          more information.
        
        * Apart from that, pythondialog requires the dialog_ program (or a
          drop-in replacement for dialog). You can download dialog from:
        
            http://invisible-island.net/dialog/dialog.html
        
          Note that some features of pythondialog may require recent versions of
          dialog.
        
        
        Quick installation instructions
        -------------------------------
        
        If you have a working `pip <https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pip>`_ setup,
        you should be able to install this backport of pythondialog with::
        
          pip install python2-pythondialog
        
        When doing so, make sure that your ``pip`` executable runs with the
        Python 2 installation you want to install the backport for.
        
        For more detailed instructions, you can read the ``INSTALL`` file from a
        release tarball. You may also want to consult the `pip documentation
        <https://pip.pypa.io/>`_.
        
        
        Backport-specific notes
        -----------------------
        
        * The pythondialog documentation is written for the reference
          implementation (Python 3 at the time of this writing). To be on the
          safe side when using the Python 2 backport, you should use Unicode
          strings every time you pass “string data” to pythondialog, and you
          will get Unicode strings in return. Indeed, these correspond directly
          to Python 3 strings, and modern versions of pythondialog (>= 2.12) are
          all based on this type of string.
        
          The pythondialog documentation consistently uses the term “string” (as
          opposed to “Unicode string”) because it has been written for Python 3,
          but **you should definitely use Unicode strings when using the
          Python 2 backport**. Many things happen to work with byte strings, but
          in most cases, this is pure coincidence; others fail, and won't be
          fixed. This is not a bug.
        
          The easiest way to use Unicode strings everywhere (or almost
          everywhere) in Python 2.x with x >= 6, consists in using::
        
            from __future__ import unicode_literals
        
          at the beginning of your Python files. This method has the additional
          benefit of preparing your transition to Python 3.
        
        * Don't use ``str()`` in Python 2 on objects such as pythondialog
          exceptions or ``dialog.DialogBackendVersion`` instances; use
          ``unicode()`` instead, which is the Python 2 equivalent of the
          Python 3 ``str()`` built-in. Of course, using ``repr()`` on any
          pythondialog object should return a byte string when run under
          Python 2, because this is how the ``repr()`` API works in Python 2.
          The same holds true for ``str()``, but this one is not supported by
          the Python 2 backport of pythondialog: it is superseded, as already
          explained, by the much more powerful ``unicode()``.
        
        * Before taking potentially expensive decisions, you should realize that
          Unicode support is *much*, much better in Python 3 than in Python 2,
          even though the basic types are largely the same (Unicode string in
          Python 2, native string in Python 3). In Python 3, native strings
          (simply called “strings” in the Python documentation) are natural and
          ubiquitous. They can be read and written from/to the standard I/O
          streams with sane encoding defaults. ``str()`` and ``repr()`` return
          native strings, as do all standard library calls whenever expected
          (i.e., when the return value is text, as opposed to binary data).
          Python 3 strings are both powerful and easy to use.
        
          By contrast, in Python 2, you always have to be very careful about
          what you manipulate: byte strings or Unicode strings. Most library
          calls in your code are a potential source of bug. Usually, this kind
          of bug only pops up when user data or input introduces non-ASCII
          characters in a byte string that is then either combined with an
          Unicode string, or used in a context where the expected encoding is
          different. This means that some users get annoyed by “crappy”
          software, while the responsible developers are often not aware of any
          problem---until a bug report is filed, if ever.
        
          Want to use ``traceback.format_exc()`` for instance? What does it
          return, byte string or Unicode string? Experiment. Answer: byte
          string. Then, how does it deal with, e.g., accented characters in an
          ``OSError`` exception message? Experiment. Answer: it outputs the
          ``repr()`` representation of an Unicode string that uses backslash
          escapes for the non-ASCII characters, all of this inside the returned
          byte string. Conclusion: the messages seen by users will be very ugly
          and more or less undecipherable for many of them. Does it behave this
          way in all cases? Tough question. Use the source, Luke...
        
          With other library calls, you might get non-ASCII characters in a byte
          string. Then, the question would be: what encoding has been used to
          encode them, and is there a reliable way to detect it? In many cases,
          this is not documented and/or depends on parameters under user
          control, such as the locale settings. Again, you have to waste time
          figuring out the encoding, and often can't be sure whether your answer
          is correct in all cases.
        
          **Bottom line:**
        
            There are good reasons why the Python developers broke compatibility
            at such a fundamental level as string management between Python 2
            and Python 3. Getting Unicode support completely right in Python 2
            may require more work than porting your code to Python 3. Besides,
            future maintainance and evolutions of your program will definitely
            be easier once it is written in Python 3. Think about it.
        
        
        Documentation
        -------------
        
        **Important:** be sure to read the `Backport-specific notes`_ above.
        
        The pythondialog Manual
        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
        
        The pythondialog Manual is written in `reStructuredText`_ format for the
        `Sphinx`_ documentation generator. The HTML documentation for the latest
        version of pythondialog as rendered by Sphinx should be available at:
        
          http://pythondialog.sourceforge.net/doc/
        
        .. _pythondialog Manual: http://pythondialog.sourceforge.net/doc/
        .. _reStructuredText: http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html
        .. _Sphinx: http://sphinx-doc.org/
        .. _LaTeX: http://latex-project.org/
        .. _Make: http://www.gnu.org/software/make/
        
        The sources for the pythondialog Manual are located in the ``doc``
        top-level directory of the pythondialog distribution, but the
        documentation build process pulls many parts from dialog.py, mainly
        docstrings.
        
        **Note:**
        
          Currently, generation of the pythondialog Manual with `Sphinx`_ has
          only been tested, and is only supported with the reference
          implementation, on Python 3. As a consequence, the package containing
          this file may be fine to read or grep through the ``.rst`` files;
          however, if compilation of said ``.rst`` files with `Sphinx`_ doesn't
          work, it is currently not considered a bug---simply download the
          reference implementation if you want to do that.
        
        To generate the documentation yourself from dialog.py and the sources in
        the ``doc`` directory, first make sure you have `Sphinx`_ and `Make`_
        installed. Then, you can go to the ``doc`` directory and type, for
        instance::
        
          make html
        
        You will then find the output in the ``_build/html`` subdirectory of
        ``doc``. `Sphinx`_ can build the documentation in many other formats.
        For instance, if you have `LaTeX`_ installed, you can generate the
        pythondialog Manual in PDF format using::
        
          make latexpdf
        
        You can run ``make`` from the ``doc`` directory to see a list of the
        available formats. Run ``make clean`` to clean up after the
        documentation build process.
        
        For those who have installed `Sphinx`_ but not `Make`_, it is still
        possible to build the documentation with a command such as::
        
          sphinx-build -b html . _build/html
        
        run from the ``doc`` directory. Please refer to `sphinx-build`_ for more
        details.
        
        .. _sphinx-build: http://sphinx-doc.org/invocation.html
        
        
        Reading the docstrings from an interactive Python interpreter
        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
        
        If you have already installed pythondialog, you may consult its
        docstrings in an interactive Python interpreter this way::
        
           >>> import dialog; help(dialog)
        
        but only parts of the documentation are available using this method, and
        the result is much less convenient to use than the `pythondialog
        Manual`_ as generated by `Sphinx`_.
        
        
        Enabling Deprecation Warnings
        -----------------------------
        
        There are a few places in ``dialog.py`` that send a
        ``DeprecationWarning`` to warn developers about obsolete features.
        However, because of:
        
          - the dialog output to the terminal;
          - the fact that such warnings are silenced by default since Python 2.7
            and 3.2;
        
        you have to do two things in order to see them:
        
          - redirect the standard error stream to a file;
          - enable the warnings for the Python interpreter.
        
        For instance, to see the warnings produced when running the demo, you
        can do::
        
          PYTHONPATH=. python2 -Wd examples/demo.py 2>/path/to/file
        
        and examine ``/path/to/file``. This can also help you to find files that
        are still open when your program exits.
        
        **Note:**
        
          If your program is terminated by an unhandled exception while stderr
          is redirected as in the preceding command, you won't see the traceback
          until you examine the file stderr was redirected to. This can be
          disturbing, as your program may exit with no apparent reason in such
          conditions.
        
        For more explanations and other methods to enable deprecation warnings,
        please refer to:
        
          http://docs.python.org/2/whatsnew/2.7.html
        
        
        Troubleshooting
        ---------------
        
        If you have a problem with a pythondialog call, you should read its
        documentation and the dialog(1) manual page. If this is not enough, you
        can enable logging of shell command-line equivalents of all dialog calls
        made by your program with a simple call to ``Dialog.setup_debug()``,
        first available in pythondialog 2.12 (the ``expand_file_opt`` parameter
        may be useful in versions 3.3 and later). An example of this can be
        found in ``demo.py`` from the ``examples`` directory.
        
        As of version 2.12, you can also enable this debugging facility for
        ``demo.py`` by calling it with the ``--debug`` flag (possibly combined
        with ``--debug-expand-file-opt`` in pythondialog 3.3 and later, cf.
        ``demo.py --help``).
        
        
        Using Xdialog instead of dialog
        -------------------------------
        
        As far as I can tell, `Xdialog`_ has not been ported to `GTK+`_ version
        2 or later. It is not in `Debian`_ stable nor unstable (June 23, 2013).
        It is not installed on my system (because of the GTK+ 1.2 dependency),
        and according to the Xdialog-specific patches I received from Peter
        Åstrand in 2004, was not a drop-in replacement for `dialog`_ (in
        particular, Xdialog seemed to want to talk to the caller through stdout
        instead of stderr, grrrrr!).
        
        .. _Xdialog: http://xdialog.free.fr/
        .. _GTK+: http://www.gtk.org/
        .. _Debian: http://www.debian.org/
        
        All this to say that, even though I didn't remove the options to use
        another backend than dialog, nor did I remove the handful of little,
        non-invasive modifications that help pythondialog work better with
        `Xdialog`_, I don't really support the latter. I test everything with
        dialog, and nothing with Xdialog.
        
        That being said, here is the *old* text of this section (from 2004), in
        case you are still interested:
        
          Starting with 2.06, there is an "Xdialog" compatibility mode that you
          can use if you want pythondialog to run the graphical Xdialog program
          (which *should* be found under http://xdialog.free.fr/) instead of
          dialog (text-mode, based on the ncurses library).
        
          The primary supported platform is still dialog, but as long as only
          small modifications are enough to make pythondialog work with Xdialog,
          I am willing to support Xdialog if people are interested in it (which
          turned out to be the case for Xdialog).
        
          The demo.py from pythondialog 2.06 has been tested with Xdialog 2.0.6
          and found to work well (barring Xdialog's annoying behaviour with the
          file selection dialog box).
        
        
        Whiptail, anyone?
        -----------------
        
        Well, pythondialog seems not to work very well with whiptail. The reason
        is that whiptail is not compatible with dialog anymore. Although you can
        tell pythondialog the program you want it to invoke, only programs that
        are mostly dialog-compatible are supported.
        
        
        History
        -------
        
        pythondialog was originally written by Robb Shecter. Sultanbek Tezadov
        added some features to it (mainly the first gauge implementation, I
        guess). Florent Rougon rewrote most parts of the program to make it more
        robust and flexible so that it can give access to most features of the
        dialog program. Peter Åstrand took over maintainership between 2004 and
        2009, with particular care for the `Xdialog`_ support. Florent Rougon
        took over maintainership again starting from 2009...
        
        .. 
          # Local Variables:
          # coding: utf-8
          # fill-column: 72
          # End:
        
Keywords: dialog,ncurses,Xdialog,text-mode interface,terminal
Platform: Unix
Classifier: Programming Language :: Python :: 2
Classifier: Programming Language :: Python :: 2.6
Classifier: Programming Language :: Python :: 2.7
Classifier: Development Status :: 5 - Production/Stable
Classifier: Environment :: Console :: Curses
Classifier: Intended Audience :: Developers
Classifier: License :: OSI Approved :: GNU Library or Lesser General Public License (LGPL)
Classifier: Operating System :: Unix
Classifier: Topic :: Software Development :: Libraries :: Python Modules
Classifier: Topic :: Software Development :: User Interfaces
Classifier: Topic :: Software Development :: Widget Sets