The Python X Library

		       Version 0.1, 21 Jul 2000


*** Copyright

The Python X Library is released under GPL, see file COPYING for
details.


*** Installation

Just copy the Xlib directory to some place in the module path.  E.g.:
     
   cp -r Xlib /usr/lib/python1.5/site-packages/
  
Make sure that that directory exists before copying.

Alternatively, you can run programs from the distribution directory,
or changing the module path in programs.


*** Introduction

The Python X Library is intended to be a fully functional X client
library for Python programs.  It is written entirely in Python, in
contrast to earlier X libraries for Python (the ancient X extension
and the newer plxlib) which were interfaces to the C Xlib.

This is possible to do since X client programs communicate with the X
server via the X protocol.  The communication takes place over TCP/IP,
Unix sockets, DECnet or any other suitable streaming network protocol.
The C Xlib is merely an interface to this protocol, providing
functions suited for a C environment.

There are three advantages of choosing to implement a pure Python
library:

 * Integration:  The library can make use of the wonderful object
   system in Python, providing an easy-to-use class hierarchy.
 
 * Portability:  The library will be usable on any computer which have
   Python installed.  A C interface could be problematic to port to
   non-Unix systems, such as MS Windows or OpenVMS.

 * Maintainability:  It is much easier to develop and debug native
   Python modules than modules written in C.


*** Project status

Currently only the basic protocol interface is implemented.  This
includes the network communication code for TCP/IP and Unix sockets
and definitions of all requests, events and errors in X11R6.

Client programs can be written using this, but that is quite awkward
(see examples/draw.py for a simple application).

There aren't any documentation for this yet except of the code and the
example program.

There are probably bugs.  The code handling network traffic and
packing/unpacking requests, events and errors have been well
tested and seems correct, but there is probably a few errors in the
definition of the requests and the events, as not all of these have
been tested yet.

The next step, except for further testing and documentation, is to
write the real client interface.  This will consist of classes
representing windows, fonts, graphic contexts, etc, which wraps the
basic protocol code in higher-level methods.

Somewhere threading support should be added.  Currently the code is
only thread safe if only one of the threads use the library.

When all that is done, we will have a complete and usable X library.
Although not very usable yet, the code is released anyway to let
interested Python hackers have a peek.  Please report or fix any bugs
you find, or get in contact if you want to help with the development
in any way.



*** Contact information

Mailing list: <python-xlib@ctrl-c.liu.se>

To subscribe, send a message to <python-xlib-request@ctrl-c.liu.se>
with the body "SUBSCRIBE".


Author email: Peter Liljenberg <petli@ctrl-c.liu.se>


There isn't any real web page yet, although new versions can be
downloaded from http://www.cendio.se/~petli/python-xlib/.