[pygtk] pyjamas-desktop/gtk2

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

folks, hi,
i've started the project i promised 2 years ago i would begin: making
apps written for the web development kit, http://code.google.com/p/pyjamas
run unmodified on the desktop.
    http://lkcl.net/pyjamas-desktop
applications written for pyjamas, the python-to-AJAX compiler, look so
startlingly similar to desktop apps that it seems blindingly intuitively
obvious that they should be _made_ to run as desktop apps.  two attempts
have been started already: apparently there's a wxPython port (but i can't
find it) and llampies - a branch of pyjamas - is an effort to make *pygtk2*
applications run unmodified in a web browser.
progress on pyjamas-desktop has been _real_ quick, thanks to so many
questions on mailing lists having already been asked, i've been able
to find answers to almost everything i've been looking for within
minutes-to-hours.  finding TreeView.set_headers_visible() was particularly
painful, though, for the dual-purpose ListBox.
effectively what i'm doing is "emulating" every single HTML widget,
one-for-one, with python-gtk2.  some of the classes, unfortunately,
simply don't exist, and/or don't map real well.

* Table is missing an insert_row() function.  i've had to keep tabs
  on every single widget inserted into the Table, using a dictionary,
  and move everything up, one-by-one.

* multi-select ListBox doesn't exist: i had to emulate one using
  TreeView with set_headers_visible() and a ScrollingWindow.

* FlowPanel i _really_ don't know what to do about that.  a FlowPanel
  is where widgets will automatically fill the panel from left to right
  until they won't fit and will then fill in a new row.  resizing a
  FlowPanel results in the widgets "flowing" across rows, automatically.

  i've looked quite hard and such a concept really seems to be either
  under a very obtuse name or non-existent.  i'm not entirely sure how
  to go about implementing it, so so hints here would be greatly
  appreciated: how to capture "resize" signals etc.

* HTMLPanel i would _like_ to use gtkhtml - but gtk.HTML doesn't exist.
  in particular, the "object_requested" signal is *perfect* - but...
  i've spent several hours searching for python-gtk-html and all i could
  find was python-gtkhtml2.  python-gtkhtml2 is completely different,
  and doesn't support "object_requested".  if you're wondering what i'm
  referring to, here it is in perl, which _does_ have Gtk::HTML -

    http://search.cpan.org/src/MLEHMANN/Gtk-Perl-0.7009/GtkHTML/samples/test.pl

  if gtk.HTML doesn't exist, this is a significant missing bit of
  strategically important functionality.  if it does, please could
  someone tell me where!!

there is much, much more - i'm having to go through literally every single
widget in the entire python-gtk2 toolset _and_ more (python-gtkmozembed
to be able to insert adobe flash plugins into a desktop app).

for those people who have been struggling to implement certain types
of widget-functionality, pyjamas-desktop/gtk2 now contains good examples.

for those people who would like to be able to develop applications for
both desktop and web, without having to modify a single line of code to
do *both* jobs, your help in adding to pyjd/gkt2 would be greatly
appreciated.

l.