Kevin Altis will lead a PythonCard tutorial and sprint at NorthwestPythonSprint #2. Kevin is PythonCard's creator and lives in Portland. PythonCard is a high-level GUI toolkit based on wxPython. Possible sprint tasks include working on PythonCard itself, or on new samples and tools. Samples are small demonstration applications, so they can be built by somebody who is relatively new to PythonCard. The following tasks have been suggested:
An image browser like GQview. PIMP may be a starting point. I (MikeOrr) like GQview but wish I could customize it more. This program would be optimized for exploring a large number of thumbnails quickly, show one full-size image at a time, open images in the GIMP with just one click, and not have PIMP's camera downloading or database.
A battleship game using Twisted (SprintTwisted).
A database program. This could be a FileMaker or Access replacement, a front end to the SQL databases, etc. This would be a large project but we could at least get a preliminary spec written.
Lately I've been working on a variety of graphics and animation in PythonCard and I wouldn't mind spending time doing more of that.
A mini spreadsheet program. At work I had to fill in the three right columns in a tab-delimited file. The office suites are overkill, but 'sc' (curses) has nonstandard keystrokes (according to its description). Why not something in between? Maybe there's already a demo that does this? Priority features: just enough to edit text files (no formulas, fonts, etc), read/write CSV format, normal navigation (arrow/enter/tab), "fill down" operation (after selecting block of cells). Secondary features: adjustable widths (fixed, auto to longest item, mouse adjust, save setting to separate file), read/write tab/colon/pipe delimited format. --MikeOrr
Simple language learning flash card application. --BrianDorsey
A few simple desktop utilities to encrypt/decrypt and sign/verify desktop files using public key algorithms. Some additional inputs would include key store (pvt key and trusted certs) and PIN/pswds to unlock them. I suggest working with OpenSSL, M2Crypto, xmlsec, and pyxmlsec. --LarryBugbee
One thing I would like to resolve before the sprint is whether everyone can work from a cvs checkout of PythonCard? The version in cvs right now is going to become release 0.8.1 and currently requires Python 2.3 or higher and wxPython 2.5.2.8 or higher. However, wxPython 2.5.3.x will be released relatively soon and I'm contemplating delaying the release of 0.8.1 until wxPython 2.5.3.x is available. If people at the coding sprint are able to do anonymous checkouts of PythonCard, then I can delay the release of 0.8.1. Please confirm here whether you are able to do an anonymous checkout. Note that PythonCard in cvs is usable as a package, so if you have PYTHONPATH environment variable, then there is no need to running the distutils installer with "python setup.py install", instead just checkout the PythonCard directory into a directory on your PYTHONPATH.
I would also like to know which OS platform people are using.