The Python X Library

		       Version 0.2, 8 Aug 2000


*** Copyright

The Python X Library is released under GPL, see the 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.

There are a simple example program, implemented twice using both the
high-level interface and the low-level protocol.


*** 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 (almost) 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

The low-level protocol and a rudimentary object oriented interface is
complete, implementing client-side X11R6.  This should be usable for
writing applications.  It runs at least on Linux using XFree86 as the
server, but should run on most Unices at least.

There are most likely bugs, as only a rather small subset of all the
requests and methods have been tested.  The code is released anyway to
let other interested Python hackers have a look (and hopefully help
out with debugging and coding :).

There aren't any documentation for this yet except of the code, the
example programs and the standard X11 documentation.

See the file TODO for a detailed list of what is missing,
approximately ordered by importance.


*** 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".  The subject line is ignored, and can be
blank. 


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/.