Getting Started with dip-builder

dip-builder is a simple tool that supports the development life-cycle of a dip application. The current version implements the following functionality:

  • allows the developer to provide meta-data for the application, including a description, the author, the application’s home page etc.
  • creates an initial application and allows the developer to specify the set of plugins to be included
  • creates a deployable package for the application. At the moment only distutils source packages are supported.

Using dip-builder is entirely optional, but it does enable the developer to create a (very simple) deployable application with a few keystrokes and mouse clicks. The rest is just normal, incremental, application development.

Of course, dip-builder is itself implemented using dip. This means that it has a number of plugin-based components than can be re-used in your own applications.

In the following sections we show screenshots of the different parts of dip-builder.

Creating a dip-builder Project

The following is a screenshot of the main dip-builder user interface when ir has been started with no command line arguments.

_images/new_project.png

Tool tips and What’s This help are provided for all input fields.

Creating an Initial Application

Invoking the Create application script... option of the Build menu starts a wizard that captures all the additional information needed to create the initial application.

The following is a screenshot of the page of the wizard that the user uses to enter the names of the plugins to include in the application. The values shown are the defaults set by dip-builder.

_images/plugins_page.png

The application script that is generated (which is a single .py file) will then normally be extended manually by the developer as additional functionality is implemented.

Creating a Deployable Package

Invoking the Create distutils distribution... option of the Build menu starts a wizard that captures all the additional information needed create a distutils source distribution.

The following is a screenshot of the first page of the wizard that the user uses to enter all of the additional required information needed to create the distribution.

_images/distutils_page.png

The support for distutils is implemented by a plugin. Support for other packing solutions will be added to future versions of dip-builder by adding appropriate plugins.