Module gtkindiclient

An INDI GUI Library using GTK

It provides functions to connect INDI objects with GTK objects.

• development of general INDI GUIs constructing themselves dynamically.
• development of special INDI GUIs to be constructed with e. g. Glade

• Linux
• Windows
• any other platform supporting Python and GTK

Connecting INDI objects to GTK widgets

• current value
• minimum value
• maximum value
• step size
• digits after the decimal dot

• gtkindiclient.add_ccdpreview
• gtkindiclient.add_comboboxentry
• gtkindiclient.add_entry
• gtkindiclient.add_indistream
• gtkindiclient.add_label
• gtkindiclient.add_range
• gtkindiclient.add_spinbutton
• gtkindiclient.add_statuslabel
• gtkindiclient.add_switchlabel
• gtkindiclient.add_togglebuttons
• gtkindiclient.add_vectorlabel

>>> indi.add_spinbutton(dev,"CCDPREVIEW_CTRL","WIDTH",self.width)

Bidirectional Connections

The add_* functions mentioned in section Connecting INDI objects to GTK widgets return a handler object. If the widget can be changed by the user, the handler object has got a gui_indi_object_handler.set_bidirectional method. If you call it, the handler will link to GTK such a way that it sends an indiobject to the server each time the user changes the widget.

>>> indi.add_spinbutton(dev,"CCDPREVIEW_CTRL","WIDTH",self.width).set_bidirectional()

Building a GUI manually

We strongly recommend to use Glade instead of this approach (see section Building a GUI in a visual way). The example below demonstrates how to build a gui manually.

>>> from gtkindiclient import *
>>> import gtk
>>> try:
>>>     def on_delete(*args):
>>>             global running
>>>             running=False
>>> global running
>>> running=True
>>> indi=gtkindiclient("localhost",7624)
>>> mainwindow = gtk.Window(gtk.WINDOW_TOPLEVEL)
>>> mainwindow.connect("delete_event", on_delete)
>>> mainwindow.show()
>>> label=gtk.Label()
>>> label.show()
>>> indi.add_label("Telescope Simulator","EQUATORIAL_COORD","RA",label)
>>> mainwindow.add(label)
>>> while running:
>>>     indi.process_events()
>>>     while gtk.events_pending():
>>>             gtk.main_iteration_do(False)
>>>     time.sleep(0.01)
>>> indi.quit()

Building a GUI in a visual way

With Glade you can design the GUI of your application in a visual way. Glade produces a .glade file. SimpleGladeApp generates the basic Python code for your GUI writing a .py file, providing callbacks to be implemented by you. You can edit this .py file writing your custom code. If you add a new callback in Glade you can run SimpleGladeApp and the new callback will be added to the .py file and the changes you already made to the .py file will be preserved. In these callbacks you can add the connections between INDIobjects and GTKwidgets. An example for these callbacks is given below. The complete example is given in the file testccd.py Important: The indiserver must be running tutorial_ccdpreview in order to run this example.

>>> # Put your modules and data here
>>> import gtk
>>> from SimpleGladeApp import SimpleGladeApp
>>> from gtkindiclient import *
>>> # From here through main() codegen inserts/updates a class for
>>> # every top-level widget in the .glade file.

>>> class Testccd(SimpleGladeApp):
>>> def __init__(self, path="testccd.glade", root="testccd", domain=None, **kwargs):
>>>     path = os.path.join(glade_dir, path)
>>>     SimpleGladeApp.__init__(self, path, root, domain, **kwargs)
>>>
>>> def new(self):
>>>     #context Testccd.new {
>>>     indi.add_spinbutton(dev,"CCDPREVIEW_CTRL","WIDTH",self.width).set_bidirectional()
>>>     indi.add_spinbutton(dev,"CCDPREVIEW_CTRL","HEIGHT",self.height).set_bidirectional()
>>>     indi.add_spinbutton(dev,"CCDPREVIEW_CTRL","MAXGOODDATA",self.mgd).set_bidirectional()
>>>     indi.add_spinbutton(dev,"CCDPREVIEW_CTRL","BYTEORDER",self.bo).set_bidirectional()
>>>     indi.add_spinbutton(dev,"CCDPREVIEW_CTRL","BYTESPERPIXEL",self.bpp).set_bidirectional()
>>>     indi.add_label(dev,"CCD_INFO","CCD_FWHM_PIXEL",self.fwhm)
>>>     indi.add_label(dev,"CCD_INFO","CCD_PIXEL_SIZE",self.pixsize)
>>>             indi.add_spinbutton(dev,"Telescope","Focus",self.focus).set_bidirectional()
>>>     list=[self.startbutton,self.stopbutton]
>>>     indi.add_togglebuttons(dev,"readout",list).set_bidirectional()                  
>>>     indi.add_ccdpreview(dev,self.drawingarea,self.brightness,self.contrast,self.gamma)      
>>>     #context Testccd.new }
>>>
>>> def on_testccd_delete_event(self, widget, *args):
>>>     #context Testccd.on_testccd_delete_event {
>>>     global running
>>>     running=False
>>>     return True
>>>     #context Testccd.on_testccd_delete_event }

>>> def main():
>>>     global indi
>>>     global dev
>>>     global running
>>>     try:
>>>             dev="Device with Data Transfer"
>>>             indi=gtkindiclient("localhost",7624)
>>>             indi.enable_blob()
>>>             testccd = Testccd()
>>>             running=True
>>>             while running:
>>>                     indi.process_events()
>>>                     while gtk.events_pending():
>>>                             gtk.main_iteration_do(False)
>>>                     time.sleep(0.01)
>>>             indi.quit()
>>>     except:
>>>             a,b,c =sys.exc_info()
>>>             sys.excepthook(  a,b,c  )
>>>             indi.quit()

And thats it. The GUI is ready to use. (see screenshot) It is very important to keep the #context statement as they are and to implement you code only between the respective #context statements as SimpleGladeApp uses them to determine where your code started and ended, in order to avoid overwriting it.

• glade-2 testccd.glade (opens the graphical editor)
• python simple-glade-codegen.py testccd.glade (generate .py file)
• python testccd.py

Version: 0.13

Author: Dirk Huenniger

Contact: dhun (at) astro (dot) uni-bonn (dot) de

Organization: "Hoher List" observatory Daun (Germany)

License: GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, version 2