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README
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The Python X Library
Version 0.3, 22 Aug 2000
*** Copyright
The Python X Library is released under GPL, see the file COPYING for
details.
*** Installation
Just copy the Xlib directory to some place in the module path. E.g.:
cp -r Xlib /usr/lib/python1.5/site-packages/
Make sure that that directory exists before copying.
Alternatively, you can run programs from the distribution directory,
or changing the module path in programs.
There are a simple example program, implemented twice using both the
high-level interface and the low-level protocol.
*** Introduction
The Python X Library is intended to be a fully functional X client
library for Python programs. It is written entirely in Python, in
contrast to earlier X libraries for Python (the ancient X extension
and the newer plxlib) which were interfaces to the C Xlib.
This is possible to do since X client programs communicate with the X
server via the X protocol. The communication takes place over TCP/IP,
Unix sockets, DECnet or any other suitable streaming network protocol.
The C Xlib is merely an interface to this protocol, providing
functions suited for a C environment.
There are three advantages of choosing to implement a pure Python
library:
* Integration: The library can make use of the wonderful object
system in Python, providing an easy-to-use class hierarchy.
* Portability: The library will be usable on (almost) any computer
which have Python installed. A C interface could be problematic to
port to non-Unix systems, such as MS Windows or OpenVMS.
* Maintainability: It is much easier to develop and debug native
Python modules than modules written in C.
*** Project status
The low-level protocol and a rudimentary object oriented interface is
complete, implementing client-side X11R6. This should be usable for
writing applications. It runs at least on Linux using XFree86 as the
server, but should run on most Unices at least.
A resource database has been implemented and there is a framework for
adding X extension code. Currently only the XTEST extension has been
implemented.
There are most likely bugs, as only a rather small subset of all the
requests and methods have been tested. The code is released anyway to
let other interested Python hackers have a look (and hopefully help
out with debugging and coding :).
There aren't any documentation for this yet except of the code, the
example programs and the standard X11 documentation.
See the file TODO for a detailed list of what is missing,
approximately ordered by importance.
*** Contact information
Mailing list: <[email protected]>
To subscribe, send a message to <[email protected]>
with the body "SUBSCRIBE". The subject line is ignored, and can be
blank.
Author email: Peter Liljenberg <[email protected]>
There isn't any real web page yet, although new versions can be
downloaded from http://www.cendio.se/~petli/python-xlib/.