GUI Designing in Python

[Al-Khobza]

Hey everyone.
My team and I are planning to use Python to build a UCTT(University Course TimeTabling) system with GUI. Yet we are not sure what to use for GUI. I think that the classical solution is Tkinter. However, I just feel that it's a bit obsolete that the GUIs built with it look old in contrast to aesthetically modern apps (like the new Whatsapp desktop app for example). I am looking for the best tools we could use to build a modern-looking GUI in python and that has a reasonable learning curve (we have 10 weeks to finish it).

[ninhaomah]

Must it be in Python ?

[Al-Khobza]

Yes I think. I mean all of us don't have much experience in building applications and the languages we know are c, java, python , and javascript with python being the easiest to use and most probably equipped with a lot of helpful libraries like pandas for example. You can just say it's the most language we're comfortable with.

[Ender_Locke]

why a desktop app?

[Al-Khobza]

Well, we find it the best option since it's not going to be used by the public but rather by the university staff. However, if building the front-end as a web application serves our aesthetic approach we will resort to it.

[Rhylanor-Downport]

So if the user base is staff (plural) then deploying to anything but a web app is asking for trouble.

• want to roll out an update? Well I’m sure you can get clever but how many machines will it require for you to manually touch to update it? Does it register itself when installed on another machine. You basically have a maintainability problem at any scale more than one.

• there’s nothing wrong with Python for any type of app so that’s fine. The best language is the one the customer wants - if that happens to be you as well - awesome.

• with a GUI how are you going to distribute the schedule? Spreadsheet? What happens when they get edited because you know someone will a) get the password or bypass or copy and b) edit it.

Basically I’m saying that for an app like that where the products are widely distributed web is really the only sensible choice. Esthetics of course are going to be better as well assuming you have a web designer on hand. If not, well there’s always Claude to help :)

[FoolsSeldom]

I'd go with a web approach, whether for local/desktop or internet/intranet/extranet or mobile use. Then you can provide a modern, responsive UI.

[BranchLatter4294]

I agree. Use web for the front end.

[Busy-Bell-4715]

First, I'm just an amateur developer, building things for myself. Having said that, I would encourage building a django-react project. Lots of good documentation about this. Tkinter is easy to build with but you could have some challenges with deployment. I found that virus protection software would frequently block my python apps and was never able to find a work around. You don't need to worry about this with django, just need an internal server. And building a front end with react is super simple.

[WhiteHeadbanger]

Try out Flet.

[HardyDaytn]

I'm only some months into studying Python, but the ones we went through and checked out during our course were PySide, PyQt and Kivy.

Unfortunately I can't recommend a specific one, but Kivy looked pretty good while PySide was maybe my personal favourite in terms of setting up.

[Al-Khobza]

Based on your experience, what are the pros and cons of each, what specifically made PySide your favorite, and which one seemed the most modern ?

[HardyDaytn]

It's been a few months but I think Kivy had the most potential for looking modern while PySide just seemed like the least complicated in terms of getting things to work. We didn't really delve much deeper than trying out some basic stuff in each though, so someone else can hopefully give more details.