Macintosh Python crash course

This set of documents provides an introduction to various aspects of Python programming on the Mac. It is assumed that the reader is already familiar with Python and, to some extent, with MacOS Toolbox programming. Other readers may find something interesting here too, your mileage may vary.

As the previous paragraph reveals to the careful observer these examples are dated, most of them were writting before OSX and haven't been updated afterwards. They still show how to use the Carbon wrappers but aren't necessarily the best way to use the Carbon API's in OSX.

The Python Library Reference contains a section on Macintosh-specific modules that you should also read. Documentation is also available in PostScript and other forms, see the documentation section on the webserver.

The W widget set by Just van Rossum, does not have complete documentation as of this writing, but Corran Webster has documented most of it on his Python Page.

Table of contents

Note: Some of these documents were actually written a long time ago and have seen little maintainance, so use with care.

• Using python to create Macintosh applications, part zero whets your appetite by showing you how to ask the user for a filename, and how to display a message. It explains about end-of-line confusion while doing so.
• Using python to create Macintosh applications, part one explains how to create a simple modal-dialog application in Python. It also takes a glance at using the toolbox modules Res and Dlg, and EasyDialogs for simple question-dialogs.
• Using python to create Macintosh applications, part two turns the previous example program into a more complete mac application, using a modeless dialog, menus, etc. It also explains how to create applets, standalone applications written in Python.
• Freezing Python programs extends on this concept, and shows you how to create applications that can be used on machines without a full Python installed. This one is probably best skipped on first contact with MacPython.
• Using FrameWork and TextEdit shows you how to use FrameWork application framework and the TextEdit toolbox to build a text editor.
• Creating a C extension module on the Macintosh is meant for the hardcore programmer, and shows how to create an extension module in C. It also handles using Modulator to create the boilerplate for your module, and creating dynamically-loadable modules on PowerPC Macs. It assumes you use CodeWarrior for you development.
• Creating C extension modules using MPW is a companion document, written by Corran Webster, which explains how you can develop Python extensions using Apple's free MPW compiler environment.
• Using Open Scripting Architecture from Python explains how to create a Python module interfacing to a scriptable application, and how to use that module in your python program.
• Using python to create CGI scripts is a preliminary introduction to writing CGI scripts in Python and to writing scriptable applications in Python.
• Building Mac Python from source explains how to build a PPC or 68K interpreter from a source distribution.
• Embedding Python on the Mac is a minimal example of how to embed Python in other Mac applications.

• PICTbrowse is an application that locates PICT resources and displays them, it demonstrates some quickdraw and the resource and list managers. In the same folder you will find the very similar scripts ICONbrowse and cicnbrowse. oldPICTbrowse is the same program but form the pre-Appearance era, it uses a dialog with a user item and creates and manages its own List object.
• Imgbrowse displays image files in many different formats (gif, tiff, pbm, etc). It shows how to use the img modules on the mac.
• Quicktime has the standard MovieInWindow and VerySimplePlayer examples, re-coded in Python.
• Resources, Sound and Speech have some examples on using the respective managers. In the Mac:Lib folder you will also find modules that do useful things with the Communications Toolbox, the Finder interface, etc.
• Printing has an example on using the Printing module to, you guessed it, print from Python. The code is somewhat self-documenting. Donated by Just van Rossum, who also donated the Printing module itself.