Is Python.app still needed?

Package Builders
1

(This is Mac specific, if you are confused, and aren’t a Mac user)

Hey all,

I was testing something today, and found that WOW! running a wxPython app with plain old python seems to work now.

And I uninstalled python.app from my environment, and it does, indeed work – at least in my one Test case:

Intel Mac
OS-X 13.6.8
Python 3.10.13
wxpython  4.2.1

Everything from conda-forge.

I haven’t tested any other configuration yet – but maybe someone knows:

Did Apple change something?
Did the conda-forge Python build change something?
Did wxPython change something?

It sure would be nice if python.app were no longer needed …

2

I’ve needed a few hacks from python.app to make Qt applications behave nicely (e.g. report their actual name in the taskbar, appropiate logos, etc).

3

Hmm – I’ve done that via Py2App or PyInstaller – they build a full application bundle.

But that’s a nifty idea – you can hack (a copy of?) the app bundle provided by python.app to get that. Have you posted any notes on that anywhere?

So that is a use-case, but what Im trying to figure out is if it’s necessary, if you simply want to be able to run a GUI app from the command line – while developing, etc.

4

They are mostly in the context of napari. See napari/napari/__main__.py at 3f0c94a8dd5eef1ed32c49bbf1e4a329696c176b · napari/napari · GitHub.