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insane_alien

Member

Registered: 2007-11-19

Posts: 39

[SOLVED] Python Gauges?

Hi,

Using python (3.3.2) I've developed a small monitor script that takes sensor readings (Temperature, Pressure etc.) dumps the information to a log and has a CLI display of the current values that looks like this:

Temperature: 200*C ***Warning! High!***
Pressure: 1.2 bar !!!Alert!!!Low!!!

I included the warnings just to show what the alert system is like. A warning means something is getting close to having a bad impact and it should be fixed. An alert means it IS having a bad impact and you'll need to start all over again.

Until now, the text output(which is coloured for warnings) has been fine as it's only me who's been working on this project but it will eventually end up being used by others and reading a text interface at a glance isn't really going to happen.

I'm thinking of making a set of digital gauges similar to the analogue ones your get (the people this is intended for are very familiar with them) with a digital read out below for accuracy. I'm thiking something similar to this

I've never done GUI before (but i've been meaning to get round to it) and was wondering if there's maybe a tutorial or library I should be looking at for this. I've got maybe a year to develop this so time pressure isn't a factor yet.

Last edited by insane_alien (2013-08-18 09:52:40)

moetunes

Member

From: A comfortable couch

Registered: 2010-10-09

Posts: 1,033

Re: [SOLVED] Python Gauges?

conky uses lua and so does awesomewm so maybe check out using that.
Lua in Python

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Mr.Elendig

#archlinux@freenode channel op

From: The intertubes

Registered: 2004-11-07

Posts: 4,092

Re: [SOLVED] Python Gauges?

Easy to do with QT/GTK

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Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 29,520

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Python Gauges?

I'd also suggest cairo which has a good python API.

Cairo would be required as a dependency of either gtk or qt, and unless you'd be adding textboxes, dropdown selection tools, or other toolkit specific stuff, the toolkit itself probably wouldn't be needed, just the 2d drawing ability of cairo.

EDIT: I suppose I neglected the actual window creation.  Cairo needs a target surface.  So you'd need at least xlib/xcb for creating a window.  In C this is trivial, but I don't know much about python - I wouldn't be surprised if the gtk API was easier than a direct python-xlib window creation.

Last edited by Trilby (2013-08-16 11:53:54)

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nomorewindows

Member

Registered: 2010-04-03

Posts: 3,362

Re: [SOLVED] Python Gauges?

conky uses lua and so does awesomewm so maybe check out using that.
Lua in Python

I just have many read-outs in awesome on my wibox.  Drawing guages takes more cpu and memory.  Especially if you want constant read-outs.  Nothing wrong with having a thin pseudotext line as long as you know what it all means.  Xfce has some of these gauges available with plugins.

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insane_alien

Member

Registered: 2007-11-19

Posts: 39

Re: [SOLVED] Python Gauges?

Cairo/qt looks to be what i'm looking for. Time to start learning how to do a basic graphical display.

LUA in python seems a bit cludgy for me (Yo dawg, we heard you like scripting languages...) and it begs the question: "how do i make gauges in LUA?" as I know zero LUA code I think i'll give it a miss.