Gooey (Beta)

Turn (almost) any Python Console Program into a GUI application with one line

Table of Contents

• Gooey
• Table of contents
• Latest Update
• Quick Start
  • Installation Instructions
  • Usage
• What It Is
• Why Is It
• Who is this for
• How does it work
• Configuration
  • Full/Advanced
  • Basic
  • No Config
• Final Screen
• Change Log
• TODO
• Contributing
• Image Credits

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###Latest Update:

Drag and Drop support (Issue #28)

Tada!

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##Quick Start

###Installation instructions

The easiest way to install Gooey is via pip

pip install Gooey 

Alternatively, you can install Gooey by cloning the project to your local directory

git clone https://github.com/chriskiehl/Gooey.git

run setup.py

python setup.py install

###Usage

Gooey is attached to your code via a simple decorator on your main method.

from gooey import Gooey

@Gooey      <--- all it takes! :)
def main():
  # rest of code

Different styling and functionality can be configured by passing arguments into the decorator.

# options
@Gooey(advanced=Boolean,          # toggle whether to show advanced config or not 
       language=language_string,  # Translations configurable via json
       config=Boolean,            # skip config screens all together
       program_name='name',       # Defaults to script name 
       program_description        # Defaults to ArgParse Description
  )
def main():
  # rest of app

See: How does it Work section for details on each option.

Gooey will do its best to choose sensible widget defaults to display in the GUI. However, if more fine tuning is desired, you can use the drop-in replacement GooeyParser in place of ArgumentParser. This lets you control which widget displays in the GUI. See: GooeyParser

from gooey import Gooey

@Gooey      <--- all it takes! :)
def main():
  parser = GooeyParser(description="My Cool GUI Program!") 
  parser.add_argument('Filename', widget="FileChooser")

What is it?

Gooey converts your Console Applications into end-user-friendly GUI applications. It lets you focus on building robust, configurable programs in a familiar way, all without having to worry about how it will be presented to and interacted with by your average user.

Why?

Because as much as we love the command prompt, the rest of the world looks at it like an ugly relic from the early '80s. On top of that, more often than not programs need to do more than just one thing, and that means giving options, which previously meant either building a GUI, or trying to explain how to supply arguments to a Console Application. Gooey was made to (hopefully) solve those problems. It makes programs easy to use, and pretty to look at!

Who is this for?

If you're building utilities for yourself, other programmers, or something which produces a result that you want to capture and pipe over to another console application (e.g. *nix philosophy utils), Gooey probably isn't the tool for you. However, if you're building 'run and done,' around-the-office-style scripts, things that shovel bits from point A to point B, or simply something that's targeted at a non-programmer, Gooey is the perfect tool for the job. It lets you build as complex of an application as your heart desires all while getting the GUI side for free.

How does it work?

Gooey is attached to your code via a simple decorator on your main method.

@Gooey      <--- all it takes! :)
def main():
  # rest of code

At run-time, it parses your Python script for all references to ArgumentParser. (The older optparse is currently not supported.) These references are then extracted, assigned a component type based on the 'action' they provide, and finally used to assemble the GUI.

####Mappings:

Gooey does its best to choose sensible defaults based on the options it finds. Currently, ArgumentParser._actions are mapped to the following WX components.

Parser Action	Widget	Example
store	TextCtrl
store_const	CheckBox
store_true	CheckBox
store_False	CheckBox
append	TextCtrl
count	DropDown
Mutually Exclusive Group	RadioGroup
choice	DropDown

###GooeyParser

If the above defaults aren't cutting it, you can control the exact widget type by using the drop-in ArgumentParser replacement GooeyParser. This gives you the additional keyword argument widget, to which you can supply the name of the component you want to display. Best part? You don't have to change any of your argparse code to use it. Drop it in, and you're good to go.

Example:

from argparse import ArgumentParser
....

def main(): 
    parser = ArgumentParser(description="My Cool Gooey App!")
    parser.add_argument('filename', help="name of the file to process") 

Given then above, Gooey would select a normal TextField as the widget type like this:

However, by dropping in GooeyParser and supplying a widget name, you display a much more user friendly FileChooser

from gooey import GooeyParser
....

def main(): 
    parser = GooeyParser(description="My Cool Gooey App!")
    parser.add_argument('filename', help="name of the file to process", widget='FileChooser') 

Custom Widgets:

Widget	Example
Directory/FileChooser
DateChooser

---

Configuration

Gooey comes in three main flavors.

• Full/Advanced
• Basic
• No config

Each has the following options:

Parameter	Summary
language	Gooey is (kind of) international ready (sans Unicode issues (TODO)). All program text is stored in an external json file. Translating to your host language only requires filling in the key/value pairs.
program_name	The name displayed in the title bar of the GUI window. If the value is None, the title is pulled from sys.argv[0].
program_description	Sets the text displayed in the top panel of the Settings screen. If None the description is pulled from the ArgumentParser.

###Advanced

The default view is the "full" or "advanced" configuration screen. It can be toggled via the advanced parameter in the Gooey decorator.

@gooey(advanced=True)
def main():
    # rest of code   

This view presents each action in the Argument Parser as a unique GUI component. This view is ideal for presenting the program to users which are unfamiliar with command line options and/or Console Programs in general. Help messages are displayed along side each component to make it as clear as possible which each widget does.

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###Basic

The basic view is best for times when the user is familiar with Console Applications, but you still want to present something a little more polished than a simple terminal. The basic display is accessed by setting the advanced parameter in the gooey decorator to False.

@gooey(advanced=False)
def main():
    # rest of code  

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###No Config

No Config pretty much does what you'd expect: it doesn't show a configuration screen. It hops right to the display section and begins execution of the host program. This is the one for improving the appearance of little one-off scripts.

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Final Screen

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###Change Log

• Added drag and drop support
• Added new widget packs: DateChooser, FileChooser, DirChooser
• fixed several parsing related issues.
• Gooey now has a sane setup.py (thanks to hero user LudoVio)
• Gooey now builds from json for easy configurability
  • Side Note: This was done with big strides towards making Gooey language agnostic. Coming Soon!
• Fixed GUI layout so that resizing works better

###Planned Features:

• Language agnostic!
• Stop/cancel button on run screen

TODO

• Add to pypi
• Update graphics
• Get OS X version working.

Wanna help?

• Artist Wanted! The graphics and icons in Gooey are a mismash of stuff I was able to scrape up for free off the internet. I'd love to replace them with something more stylistically unified.

• Programmer? Pull requests are super welcome. The projects' style is fantastically inconsistent, though. So be warned :) I tried to follow the WxWidgets style of Leading Capital methods and CamelCased variables, but.. Python habits die hard. So, there are underscores littered all over the place.