[Pipet Devel] questions about Sketch

[J.W. Bizzaro]

Bernhard,

I wrote to you about a month ago about The Loci Project and possibly integrating
Sketch so that schematics generated by Loci can be further manipulated by
Sketch.  Loci uses PyGTK, and is so far 100% Python.

    http://bioinformatics.org/loci/

BTW, Sketch is a very nice drawing program.

We have some questions for you about Sketch:

(1) You are switching to PyGTK from Tkinter.  Was the Sketch/Tkinter version
meant to run on Windows and Mac?  Of course you know that PyGTK hasn't been
ported to those platforms.  Win/Mac compatibility is not a big issue for Loci,
but what do you think you are gaining or losing by making the switch?

(2) Sketch is licensed under the GPL.  However, two components, Pax and Filters,
are not.  What I find confusing is that they are all written and licensed by
you.  Why use different licenses?  Why not use just the GPL?

(3) When I built Sketch on my system, I noticed that some parts (Pax and others)
were written in C and compiled into binaries.  Exactly what needs to be compiled
and can Sketch work without it?  IOW, is Sketch really 100% Python?

(4) Is there a way Loci or any other Python script can import Sketch as a module
and have a drawing area appear in its window or a child window?  If not, would
you consider implementing this feature, as sort of a plug-in mechanism?  Or
should we make our own drawing applet via PIL (Python Imaging Library), or just
copy/paste the Sketch source directly into Loci?

(5) What are your thoughts on using GNOME or PyGNOME?  Do you plan to make use
of the GNOME canvas at all?  Do you think GNOME and other GNU/Linux imaging
libraries could substitute for PIL?


That's all for now :-)  Thanks.


Jeff
-- 
J.W. Bizzaro                  mailto:bizzaro at bc.edu
Boston College Chemistry      http://www.uml.edu/Dept/Chem/Bizzaro/
--