Win32

• If you have a modern up to date version of Windows and use the binary installer for wxPython found below, you probably don't need anything else.

• If your tree controls have strange background colors, try loading this MS Common Controls Update as wxWidgets does something that causes a bug in one of the older versions to manifest itself. Another way to get this update is to install Internet Explorer or MS Office apps, so if the system has those already then you probably don't need to worry about this.

• wxPython's wx.glcanvas.GLCanvas class only provides the GL Context and a wx.Window to put it in, so if you want to use the wxGLCanvas you will also need the PyOpenGL Python extension modules as well.

• Windows 95 users will probably also need the following items to update their systems:
  • Winsock 2.0
  • OpenGL
  • HTML Help viewer (to view the online documentation)

Linux/Unix/Etc.

• The first thing you'll need are the glib and gtk+ libraries. Before you run off and download the sources check your system, you probably already have it. Most distributions of Linux come with it and you'll start seeing it on many other systems too now that Sun and others have chosen GNOME as the desktop of choice. If you don't have glib and gtk+ already, you can get the sources here. Build and install them following the directions included.

• In order to use the wxGLCanvas you'll need to have either OpenGL or the Mesa3D library on your system. wxPython's wx.glcanvas.GLCanvas only provides the GL Context and a wx.Window to put it in, so you will also need the PyOpenGL Python extension modules as well, if you want to use OpenGL.

  If you are building wxPython yourself and don't care to use OpenGL/Mesa then you can easily skip building it and can ignore this step. See the build instructions for details.

Mac OS X

• wxPython needs a special Mac OS X-specific build of Python, called a Framework build, in order to work. Panther and Tiger include a Framework build of Python 2.3, or you can get a newer version of Python the Python Framework from the Python site.
• Note to Fink users: Versions of Python installed by Fink or other unix-like package repositories cannot run wxPython (unless you install and run X11 and use a wxGTK version of wxPython...). You need to use Apple's Framework builds, or a third-party Framework build to be able to have a native Aqua GUI.
  

NOTE: The links below are for the binaries and source for wxPython 2.8.9.1. The download page for the previous stable release series is here. Other prior versions (stable or development) are available directly from SourceForge.

NOTE 2: wxPython now supports having more than one wxPython runtime installed at the same time, and provides a mechanism for choosing a non-default version at runtime if the app needs to. Please read MultiVersionInstalls for all the gory details.

There are two versions of wxPython for each of the supported Python versions on Win32. They are nearly identical, except one of them has been compiled with support for the Unicode version of the platform APIs. Unless you've been told differently, you probably want to get the Unicode build of wxPython. Although they are not nativly Unicode like NT-based systems, the Unicode build of wxPython will also mostly work on Windows 98/Me systems using a Microsoft hack called MSLU (or unicows.dll) that translates unicode API calls to ansi API calls. However the coverage of the API is not complete so there are some difficult bugs lurking in there, so the best thing to do is to upgrade your machines if possible, otherwise Windows 98/Me users may want to try the ANSI build instead.

If you have a need to compile other Python extension modules or applications that link with the same version of the wxWidgets DLL that wxPython does, then you will want to get the development package. It includes a snapshot of the wx headers and the import libraries found on my system when I made the wxPython binaries.

• wxPython2.8-win32-devel

Not sure if you should use the ANSI or Unicode version? Read here for more info.

Got an Intel Mac? All of the wxPython builds for OS X are now Universal Binaries, and will work on OS X 10.3.9 or 10.4.x, PPC or Intel.

OS X Binaries

There is also a package repository maintained by the wxWidgets team that will always have up to date pacakges for wxWidgets and wxPython for various Debian and Ubuntu releases. There are instructions for accessing this repository on the wiki.

You can also do it the old way from the source RPM using alien, as described here, although I'm not sure there is any need to do it that way any more.

• wxPython-docs

Thre is an effort underway to create a Python-specific set of reference docs for wxPython. While much of the content is not yet present, the docs are still usable, and in fact helpful since they already accurately document what classes and methods are present in wxPython and what the parameter names are. A downloadable archive of the new docs is now made as part of the release builds, and it can also be accessed online here.

• wxPython-newdocs

• wxPython-demo

Be sure to read the BUILD and INSTALL instructions if you are wanting to use the sources to build your own copy of wxPython.

• wxPython-src
• wxPython src rpm
• RPM spec file

If you want to build an RPM for your system then please read the begining of the spec file about some options that can be set on the rpmbuild command line. For example, to build a set of RPMs for gtk1, ansi, and python 2.3 you can use this command:

    rpmbuild -ta --define 'pyver 2.3' \
                 --define 'port gtk' \
                 --define 'unicode 0' \
                 wxPython-src-2.8.9.1.tar.bz2

Development Sources
You can also get access to the source tree from the wxWidgets Subversion (SVN) server. This lets you have instant access to new features and bug fixes as the core wxWidgets/wxPython developers complete their implementaion and check them in to the repository. To learn more about SVN and to get the SVN programs if you don't already have them, go to the SVN Home.

You can browse the source repository, including the history of changes to each file by going to http://svn.wxwidgets.org/viewvc/wx/.

To get your own copy of the source code from SVN simply run "svn checkout" with one of the following URLs (or any others that will give you the code you want to see.) You'll probably also want to specify a destination directory that makes sense to you.

Once you have a working copy of the code you can modify it and use "svn diff" to make a patch to submit to the patch tracker, or you can use "svn update" to fetch new changes from the repository.