So, Holly's been away …

… in san Francisco

… at the Stanford Synchrotron

… playing with fossils

… in a particle accelerator

But I'm not jealous …

Now she's back with 50Gb of data

And I stupidly ask …

• So what do you process this data with?
• MATLAB™
• Bad MATLAB™ code
• Written by scientists
• … yes, that bad

This is a user interface…

(apparently)

function create_tiffs

inputFolder = '/home/holly/Desktop/pterosaur/RAS files'
outputFolder8 = '/home/holly/Desktop/pterosaur/8 Bit TIFFs'
outputFolder16 = '/home/holly/Desktop/pterosaur/16 Bit TIFFs'
channel_file = 'Channels HZ.txt'
bin_list = [1]
% bin_list = [1 2 4 8]

files_info = dir([inputFolder '/*.RAS'])
files = {}
for ifile = 1: length(files_info)
    files{ifile} = files_info(ifile).name
end

channels = {'XX', 'Cu', 'Zn', 'Pbli', 'Pbla', 'Pblb', 'Ca', 'Br', 'Mn', 'Fe', 'Tika', 'Tikb', 'ES', 'ICR', 'Nika', 'none'}
…

So I built a script

Attempt #1: Console

Attempt #1: Console

Attempt #1: Console

• It looks awfully complicated …

Attempt #1: Console

• It looks awfully complicated …
• What? Compared to editing code?!

Attempt #1: Console

• It looks awfully complicated …
• What? Compared to editing code?!
• Well, maybe, but we've got instructions for that

Attempt #1: Console

• It looks awfully complicated …
• What? Compared to editing code?!
• Well, maybe, but we've got instructions for that
• But look, I included a --help screen!

Attempt #1: Console

• It looks awfully complicated …
• What? Compared to editing code?!
• Well, maybe, but we've got instructions for that
• But look, I included a --help screen!
• They won't like it you know …

Attempt #1: Console

• It looks awfully complicated …
• What? Compared to editing code?!
• Well, maybe, but we've got instructions for that
• But look, I included a --help screen!
• They won't like it you know …
• Grrrr… I'm not going to make a GUI you know …

So I set out to build a GUI…

• Must work on Linux
• Must work on Windows
• Would be nice if it worked on Mac too
• Must be trivial to install:
• On Linux that means everything must be packaged and preferably should be in the main repos
• On Windows that means everything should be .exe installable, and more than three installers will probably annoy the users
• On Mac, I have no idea what that means …

But which toolkit?

But which toolkit?

But which toolkit?

GUI #1: GTK3

• Wonderful toolkit and API (PyGObjects)
• Horribly buggy designer (Glade)
• Still, after a bit of effort, got something working …

GUI #1: GTK3

• Wonderful toolkit and API (PyGObjects)
• Horribly buggy designer (Glade)
• Still, after a bit of effort, got something working …
• … only to discover the matplotlib bundled with Ubuntu doesn't support GTK3
• … and it's not packaged for Windows yet either (well, not nicely anyway)

GUI #2: GTK2 (PyGTK)

• Still a wonderful toolkit, albeit a slightly rougher API
• Still a horribly buggy designer
• But after experience with GTK3, quickly got something working
• Even got a matplotlib chart embedded in it!

GUI #2: GTK2 (PyGTK)

• Still a wonderful toolkit, albeit a slightly rougher API
• Still a horribly buggy designer
• But after experience with GTK3, quickly got something working
• Even got a matplotlib chart embedded in it!
• … and then discovered menus don't work with Unity
• … found forum solution: upgrade your code to GTK3 …

GUI #3: PySide

• Slightly limited toolkit, but workable
• Truly awesome designer!
• Knocked up a workable GUI base

GUI #3: PySide

• Slightly limited toolkit, but workable
• Truly awesome designer!
• Knocked up a workable GUI base
• … only to discover the matplotlib bundled with Ubuntu doesn't support PySide either

GUI #4: PyQT4

• Same toolkit as PySide
• Same designer as PySide
• Almost everything the same as PySide - took about 5 minutes reading and porting to convert it

GUI #4: PyQT4

• Same toolkit as PySide
• Same designer as PySide
• Almost everything the same as PySide - took about 5 minutes reading and porting to convert it
• … and then the bastard segfaulted

Conclusion - Toolkits

• GTK's very cool … but QT's designer kicks the crap out of Glade
• Also, without (decent, well packaged) Windows support, GTK3 isn't really x-platform
• QT seems to be the toolkit of choice of the scientific community
• Linux is still way easier to install stuff on
• But Ubuntu's matplotlib desperately needs updating
• (yes, there's PPAs for it, but you try explaining add-apt-repository and apt-get update to scientists …)
• Maybe I just tried this at the wrong time; it seems the two major toolkits are in a transitional period