Building wxPython on Win32 -------------------------- Building wxPython for use on win32 systems is a fairly simple process consisting of just a few steps. However depending on where you get your sources from and what your desired end result is, there are several permutations of those steps. At a high level the basic steps are: 1. Get the wxWindows sources 2. Build the wxWindows DLL 3. Get the wxPython sources 4. Build and Install wxPython We'll go into more detail of each of these steps below, but first a few bits of background information on tools. I use a tool called SWIG (http://www.swig.org) to help generate the C++ sources used in the wxPython extension module. However you don't need to have SWIG unless you want to modify the *.i files. I've made several modifications to SWIG specific to wxPython's needs and so the modified sources are included in the wx CVS at .../wxPython/wxSWIG. If you need to modify the *.i files for wxPython then change to this directory and run: nmake -f makefile.vc Then you'll need to change a flag in the setup.py script as described below so the wxPython build process will use SWIG if needed. I use the new Python Distutils tool to build wxPython. It is included with Python 2.0, but if you want to use Python 1.5.2 or 1.6 then you'll need to download and install Distutils 1.0 from http://www.python.org/sigs/distutils-sig/ I use Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 (5.0 with the service packs should work also) to compile the wxPython C++ sources. Since I am using Distutils it should be easier now to build with other win32 compilers such as the free mingw32 or Borland compilers, but I havn't tried them yet. If anybody wants to try it I'll take any required patches for the setup script and for these instructions. And now on to the fun stuff... 1. Get the wxWindows sources ---------------------------- A. There are a few possible ways to get sources for wxWindows. You can download a released version from http://wxwindows.org/ or you can get current development sources from the CVS server. (Some information about annonymous CVS access is at the http://wxwindows.org/cvs.htm site.) The advantage of using CVS is that you can easily update as soon as the developers check in new sources or fixes. The advantage of using a released version is that it usually has had more thorough testing done. You can decide which method is best for you. B. You'll usually want to use wxWindows sources that have the same version number as the wxPython sources you are using. (Another advantage of using CVS is that you'll get both at the same time.) C. Once you get the sources be sure to put them in a path without a space in it (i.e., NOT c:\Program Files\wx) and set an environment variable named WXWIN to this directory. For example: mkdir \wx2 cd \wx2 unzip wxMSW-2.2.2.zip set WXWIN=c:\wx2 You'll probably want to add that last line to your autoexec.bat or System Properties depending on the type of system you are on. D. Change to the wx2\include\wx\msw directory and copy setup0.h to setup.h and then edit setup.h. This is how you control which parts of wxWindows are compiled into or left out of the build, simply by turning options on or off. I have the following differences from the default setup0.h in my setup.h, but you can experiment with other settings if you like: WXWIN_COMPATIBILITY_2_2 0 wxDIALOG_UNIT_COMPATIBILITY 0 wxUSE_MEMORY_TRACING 1 wxUSE_CMDLINE_PARSER 0 wxUSE_FSVOLUME 0 wxUSE_DIALUP_MANAGER 0 wxUSE_DYNAMIC_LOADER 0 wxUSE_TREELAYOUT 0 wxUSE_MS_HTML_HELP 0 wxUSE_POSTSCRIPT 1 ** NEW ** Be sure that wxUSE_GLCANVAS is defined to be 0 as wxPython now keeps its own copy of the glcanvas sources and expects that it is not in the main library. This is done to reduce the number of dependant DLLs on the core library and therefore help reduce startup time. 2. Build the wxWindows DLL --------------------------- A. Although MSVC project files are provided I always use the makefiles to build wxWindows because by default the flags are compatible with Python, (and I make sure they stay that way.) You would have to edit the project files a bit to make it work otherwise. B. There are three different types of wxWindows DLLs that can be produced by the VC makefile simply by providing a flag on the nmake command-line, I call the three types DEBUG, FINAL, and HYBRID. Here are some more details: DEBUG Specified with "FINAL=0" and produces a DLL named wxmsw[version]d.dll. This DLL is compiled with full debugging information and with the __WXDEBUG__ macro set, which enables some debugging-only code in wxWindows such as assertions and failure log messages. The /MDd flag is used which means that it is linked with the debugging version of the C runtime library and also that you must use the debugging version of Python, (python_d.exe and pythonXX_d.dll) which also means that all extensions loaded by Python should also have the _d in the name. With this option you can use the MSVC debugger to trace though the Python interpreter, as well as the code for the wxPython extension and the wxWindows DLL. FINAL Specified with "FINAL=1" and produces a DLL named wxmsw[version].dll. This DLL is compiled with optimizations turned on and without debugging information and without __WXDEBUG__. The /MD flag is used which means that you can use this version with the standard python.exe. This is the version that I use when making the binary installer for win32. HYBRID Specified with "FINAL=hybrid" and produces a DLL named wxmsw[version]h.dll. This DLL is almost the same as the DEBUG version except the /MD flag is used which means that you can use the standard python.exe but you still get the debugging info and the __WXDEBUG__ code enabled. With the debugger you can trace through the the code for the wxPython extension and the wxWindows DLL, but not the Python interpreter. You might use this version when you want to deploy a wxPython app with the __WXDEBUG__ code enabled. I use this mode most of the time during development simply because it's easier than having to remember to type python_d all the time. Since different DLL names and object file directories are used you can build all three types if you like. C. Change to the wx2\src\msw directory and type the following command, using the value for FINAL that you want: nmake -f makefile.vc dll pch FINAL=hybrid Your machine will then crunch away for possibly a long time, depending on your hardware, and when it's done you should have a DLL and some library files in \wx2\lib. D. You'll either need to add \wx2\lib to the PATH or copy the DLL file to a directory already on the PATH so the DLL can be found at runtime. Another option is to copy the DLL to the directory that the wxPython pacakge is installed to, for example, c:\Python22\lib\site-packages\wxPython. E. You can test your build by changing to one of the directories under \wx2\samples or \wx2\demos and typing (using the right FINAL flag): nmake -f makefile.vc FINAL=hybrid WXUSINGDLL=1 and then executing the resulting .exe file. 3. Get the wxPython sources --------------------------- A. You have the same options (and same advantages/disadvantages) for getting the wxPython source, either a released snapshot or from CVS. The released version file is named wxPython-[version].tar.gz and is available at http://wxpython.org/download.php. You can use WinZip to unpack it if you don't have tar and gzip. If you want to use CVS you'll find wxPython in the wxWindows CVS tree (see above) in the wxWindows/wxPython directory. 4. Build and Install wxPython ----------------------------- A. As mentioned previouslly, wxPython is built with the standard Python Distutils tool. If you are using Python 2.0 or later you are all set, otherwise you need to download and install Distutils 1.0 from http://www.python.org/sigs/distutils-sig/. B. Change to the root wxPython directory and look at the setup.py file. This is the script that configures and defines all the information that Distutils needs to build wxPython. There are some options near the begining of the script that you may want or need to change based on what options you have selected up to this point, (type of DLL built, sources from tar.gz or from CVS, etc.) You can either change these flags directly in setup.py or supply them on the command-line. BUILD_GLCANVAS Set to zero if you don't want to build the Open GL canvas extension module. BUILD_OGL Set to zero if you don't want to build the Object Graphics Library extension module. BUILD_STC Set to zero if you don't want to build the wxStyledTextCtrl (the Scintilla wrapper) extension module. USE_SWIG If you have edited any of the *.i files you will need to set this flag to non-zero so SWIG will be executed to regenerate the wrapper C++ and shadow python files. IN_CVS_TREE If you are using the CVS version of the wxWindows and wxPython sources then you will need to set this flag to non-zero. This is needed because some source files from the wxWindows tree are copied to be under the wxPython tree in order to keep Distutils happy. With this flag set then setup.py will automatically keep these copied sources up to date if the original version is ever updated. If you are using the tar.gz version of the Python sources then these copied sources are already present in your source tree. C. To build and install wxPython you simply need to execute the setup.py script. If you have more than one version of Python installed, be sure to execute setup.py with the version you want to build wxPython for. Depending on what kind of wxWindows DLL you built there are different command-line parameters you'll want to pass to setup (in addition to possibly one or more of the above): FINAL: python setup.py install DEBUG: python setup.py build --debug install HYBRID: python setup.py HYBRID=1 install NOTE: If you get an internal compiler error from MSVC then you need to edit setup.py and add in the /GX- flag that is normally commented out. Just search for "GX-" and uncomment it so it is put into the cflags list. D. At this point you should be able to change into the wxPython\demo directory and run the demo: python demo.py E. If you would like to make a test build that doesn't overwrite the installed version of wxPython you can do so with one of these commands instead of the install command above: FINAL: python setup.py build_ext --inplace DEBUG: python setup.py build_ext --debug --inplace HYBRID: python setup.py HYBRID=1 build_ext --inplace This will build the wxPython package in the local wxPython directory instead of installing it under your Python installation. To run using this test version just add the base wxPython source directory to the PYTHONPATH: set PYTHONPATH=c:\wx2\wxPython cd c:\wx2\wxPython\demo python demo.py That's all folks! ----------------- robin@alldunn.com