Part 3 examines some advanced elements like list, grid and tree controls. It also looks at incorporating HTML and printing into wxPython applications. Finally, Part 3 concludes with topics on implementing cut and paste, drag and drop, and multi-threading functions.
With few exceptions, the book takes its title to heart. Offering a very fast, cogent, and concise explanation of the many widgets and tools necessary to implement a polished GUI application. One of the great features of this "in Action" book is the nesting of a functional index (in the form of frequently asked questions) within the table of contents. This makes recipes for common GUI widgets and techniques easy to find. For example, if one needed to quickly learn how to enter numbers, look up the chapter title "Working with the basic controls", then look under the subheading "Entering and displaying numbers." Under that subheading, one will find frequently asked questions like: 'How do I make a slider?' or 'How do I make those neat up/down arrow buttons?'.
Under each of these questions, the author provides a relatively short explanation of the widget function, and then illustrates its implementation with a mini-GUI application. Copious annotations are often provided for a complex code snippet, explaining how individual wxPython method calls work. Attribute and style tables are also included to describe how a widget's look and behavior can be altered. The book seems to include just about every feature/widget you would need to create a polished end product.
I also sat down and tried out several of the mini-GUI applications in the book. The annotations provided with the code made learning the GUI techniques relatively easy. While I was not able to run every code example in the book, the ones I did run were bug-free. For those who don't like to type in the code examples, you can download all the code examples at the Manning Publications website.
If you do find something missing, buggy or confusing, you can turn to Manning Publications' Author Online Forum. Here, you can submit questions directly to the authors and read their responses.
Manning also sells an ebook version of this book for about half the softcover price. The ebook appears to be an identical copy of the print edition with a few extra features added to it. Since the book is in the PDF format, it makes some use of PDF's ability to link to other parts of the text. For instance, you can have the table of contents presented side-by-side with the text and jump from one section to another by clicking on the various chapters and sub-headings in the table of contents. The index is also linked to the text, with each page number linked to its respective page.
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