python launcher mac-4. Using Python on a Macintosh

4.Using Python on a Macintosh¶

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Python on a Macintosh running Mac OS X is in principle very similar to Python on

any other Unix platform, but there are a number of additional features such as

the IDE and the Package Manager that are worth pointing out.

The Mac-specific modules are documented in Mac OS X specific services.

Python on Mac OS 9 or earlier can be quite different from Python on Unix or

Windows, but is beyond the scope of this manual, as that platform is no longer

supported, starting with Python 2.4. See http://www.cwi.nl/~jack/macpython for

installers for the latest 2.3 release for Mac OS 9 and related documentation.

4.1.Getting and Installing MacPython¶

Mac OS X 10.8 comes with Python 2.7 pre-installed by Apple. If you wish, you

are invited to install the most recent version of Python from the Python website

(https://www.python.org). A current “universal binary” build of Python, which

runs natively on the Mac’s new Intel and legacy PPC CPU’s, is available there.

What you get after installing is a number of things:

A MacPython 2.7 folder in your Applications folder. In here

you find IDLE, the development environment that is a standard part of official

Python distributions; PythonLauncher, which handles double-clicking Python

scripts from the Finder; and the “Build Applet” tool, which allows you to

package Python scripts as standalone applications on your system.

A framework /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework, which includes the

Python executable and libraries. The installer adds this location to your shell

path. To uninstall MacPython, you can simply remove these three things. A

symlink to the Python executable is placed in /usr/local/bin/.

The Apple-provided build of Python is installed in

/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework and /usr/bin/python,

respectively. You should never modify or delete these, as they are

Apple-controlled and are used by Apple- or third-party software. Remember that

if you choose to install a newer Python version from python.org, you will have

two different but functional Python installations on your computer, so it will

be important that your paths and usages are consistent with what you want to do.

IDLE includes a help menu that allows you to access Python documentation. If you

are completely new to Python you should start reading the tutorial introduction

in that document.

If you are familiar with Python on other Unix platforms you should read the

section on running Python scripts from the Unix shell.

4.1.1.How to run a Python script¶

Your best way to get started with Python on Mac OS X is through the IDLE

integrated development environment, see section The IDE and use the Help menu

when the IDE is running.

If you want to run Python scripts from the Terminal window command line or from

the Finder you first need an editor to create your script. Mac OS X comes with a

number of standard Unix command line editors, vim and

emacs among them. If you want a more Mac-like editor,

BBEdit or TextWrangler from Bare Bones Software (see

http://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit/index.html) are good choices, as is

TextMate (see https://macromates.com/). Other editors include

Gvim (http://macvim.org) and Aquamacs

(http://aquamacs.org/).

To run your script from the Terminal window you must make sure that

/usr/local/bin is in your shell search path.

To run your script from the Finder you have two options:

Drag it to PythonLauncher

Select PythonLauncher as the default application to open your

script (or any .py script) through the finder Info window and double-click it.

PythonLauncher has various preferences to control how your script is

launched. Option-dragging allows you to change these for one invocation, or use

its Preferences menu to change things globally.

4.1.2.Running scripts with a GUI¶

With older versions of Python, there is one Mac OS X quirk that you need to be

aware of: programs that talk to the Aqua window manager (in other words,

anything that has a GUI) need to be run in a special way. Use pythonw

instead of python to start such scripts.

With Python 2.7, you can use either python or pythonw.

4.1.3.Configuration¶

Python on OS X honors all standard Unix environment variables such as

PYTHONPATH, but setting these variables for programs started from the

Finder is non-standard as the Finder does not read your .profile or

.cshrc at startup. You need to create a file

~/.MacOSX/environment.plist. See Apple’s Technical Document QA1067 for

details.

For more information on installation Python packages in MacPython, see section

Installing Additional Python Packages.

4.2.The IDE¶

MacPython ships with the standard IDLE development environment. A good

introduction to using IDLE can be found at

https://hkn.eecs.berkeley.edu/~dyoo/python/idle_intro/index.html.

4.3.Installing Additional Python Packages¶

There are several methods to install additional Python packages:

Packages can be installed via the standard Python distutils mode (python

setup.py install).

Many packages can also be installed via the setuptools extension

or pip wrapper, see https://pip.pypa.io/.

4.4.GUI Programming on the Mac¶

There are several options for building GUI applications on the Mac with Python.

PyObjC is a Python binding to Apple’s Objective-C/Cocoa framework, which is

the foundation of most modern Mac development. Information on PyObjC is

available from https://pythonhosted.org/pyobjc/.

The standard Python GUI toolkit is Tkinter, based on the cross-platform

Tk toolkit (https://www.tcl.tk). An Aqua-native version of Tk is bundled with OS

X by Apple, and the latest version can be downloaded and installed from

https://www.activestate.com; it can also be built from source.

wxPython is another popular cross-platform GUI toolkit that runs natively on

Mac OS X. Packages and documentation are available from http://www.wxpython.org.

PyQt is another popular cross-platform GUI toolkit that runs natively on Mac

OS X. More information can be found at

https://riverbankcomputing.com/software/pyqt/intro.

4.5.Distributing Python Applications on the Mac¶

The “Build Applet” tool that is placed in the MacPython 2.7 folder is fine for

packaging small Python scripts on your own machine to run as a standard Mac

application. This tool, however, is not robust enough to distribute Python

applications to other users.

The standard tool for deploying standalone Python applications on the Mac is

py2app. More information on installing and using py2app can be found

at http://undefined.org/python/#py2app.

4.6.Other Resources¶

The MacPython mailing list is an excellent support resource for Python users and

developers on the Mac:

Another useful resource is the MacPython wiki: