Question

How can easily I make a blocking GUI app on OS X?

I have a simple python plotting program. When I run it from inside an existing python interactive session, or from within iPython, the GUI window is displayed, and I can see it and interact with it. When I run the .py file from the CLI, the GUI flashes and closes immediately.

I would like to run this from the command line and have the GUI remain.

if __name__ == "__main__":
    import matplotlib
    from matplotlib import pyplot
    data = range(1,10)
    fig = pyplot.plot(data)
    pyplot.show()

Answer 1

It sounds as though interactive mode has been enabled somehow, although I’m not sure where. Try it like this:

def main():
    import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
    data = range(1,10)
    fig = plt.plot(data)
    plt.ioff()  # turns interactive mode OFF, should make show() blocking
    plt.show()


if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()