Create a directly-executable cross-platform GUI app using Python
deployment, python, release-management, tkinter, user-interface
Solution
First you will need some GUI library with Python bindings and then (if you want) some program that will convert your python scripts into standalone executables.
Cross-platform GUI libraries with Python bindings (Windows, Linux, Mac)
Of course, there are many, but the most popular that I've seen in wild are:
- Tkinter - based on Tk GUI toolkit.
De-facto standard GUI library for python, free for commercial projects.
- WxPython - based on WxWidgets.
Popular, and free for commercial projects.
- Qt using the PyQt bindings or Qt for Python.
The former is not free for commercial projects. The latter is less mature, but can be used for free.
Qt itself supposedly supports `Android` and `iOS` as well, but achiving same with it's bindings should be tricky.
- Kivy written in Python for Python (update 2023).
Supposedly supports `Android` and `iOS` as well.
Note that users of `WxWidgets` (hence `WxPython` users), often need to use `WxQt` as well, because `WxWidgets`'s own GUI is not yet at `Qt`'s level (at time of writting).
Complete list is at http://wiki.python.org/moin/GuiProgramming
Stand-alone/ single executables
For all platforms:
- PyInstaller - The most active (which could also be used with `PyQt`)
- fbs - if you chose Qt above (commercial, with free plan)
For Windows:
- py2exe - used to be the most popular
For Linux:
- Freeze - works the same way like py2exe but targets Linux platform
For MacOS:
- py2app - again, works like py2exe but targets Mac OS
Problem
Python works on multiple platforms and can be used for desktop and web applications, thus I conclude that there is some way to compile it into an executable for Mac, Windows and Linux. The problem being I have no idea where to start or how to write a GUI with it, can anybody shed some light on this and point me in the right direction please?