Question

I was wondering if anyone knows a way to program flashing text into wxPython? (I am fairly new to wxPython)
It would flash between red and normal every half second or so, I am using Python 2.7.3, not the most recent release.

Thanks

Chris

Answer 1

You’ll want to look at how to change fonts on the fly. Typically, it’s just calling the widget’s SetFont() method. Since you want to do this on a regular basis, then you’ll almost certainly want to use a wx.Timer. You can read my tutorial on that subject, if you want. I would probably use the StaticText widget.

Update: Here’s a silly example:

import random
import time
import wx

########################################################################
class MyPanel(wx.Panel):
    """"""

    #----------------------------------------------------------------------
    def __init__(self, parent):
        """Constructor"""
        wx.Panel.__init__(self, parent)

        self.font = wx.Font(12, wx.DEFAULT, wx.NORMAL, wx.NORMAL)
        self.flashingText = wx.StaticText(self, label="I flash a LOT!")
        self.flashingText.SetFont(self.font)

        self.timer = wx.Timer(self)
        self.Bind(wx.EVT_TIMER, self.update, self.timer)
        self.timer.Start(1000)

    #----------------------------------------------------------------------
    def update(self, event):
        """"""
        now = int(time.time())
        mod = now % 2
        print now
        print mod
        if mod:
            self.flashingText.SetLabel("Current time: %i" % now)
        else:
            self.flashingText.SetLabel("Oops! It's mod zero time!")
        colors = ["blue", "green", "red", "yellow"]
        self.flashingText.SetForegroundColour(random.choice(colors))

########################################################################
class MyFrame(wx.Frame):
    """"""

    #----------------------------------------------------------------------
    def __init__(self):
        """Constructor"""
        wx.Frame.__init__(self, None, title="Flashing text!")
        panel = MyPanel(self)
        self.Show()

#----------------------------------------------------------------------
if __name__ == "__main__":
    app = wx.App(False)
    frame = MyFrame()
    app.MainLoop()