Just FYI, wxPython Phoenix will only support Py 2.7 and 3.3+

Is it better to patch over all of the api changes in place or to create a compat layer like we do for qt4?

Unless you feel very strongly that this needs to go into 1.4.0, I am going to tag this 1.4.x

Except the WXK things I used a 'phoenix' version check, as these have been gone for a long time I didn't do it, but I can add it.

The changes run with current wxPython (2.8x), so no change for current users, except maybe the above if someone used those.

Phoenix is the only wxPython version which will be Python 3 compatible, so the sooner it gets into matplotlib the sooner people could start testing wxPython and matplotlib on Py3.3+.

I am only preparing my stuff for Py3.3 that is why I did this work but there is no urgency for me.

@tacaswell What do you mean with qt4 compat layer?
Like in the file https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib/blob/master/lib/matplotlib/backends/qt4_compat.py?

So you propose something like a wx_compat.py like the following:

e.g. no more EmptyBitmap functions:

import wx
# where do we live
is_classic = False if 'phoenix' in wx.PlatformInfo else True

if is_classic:
    _EmptyBitmap = wx.EmptyBitmap
    _BitmapFromBufferRGBA = wx.BitmapFromBufferRGBA
    # ...
else:
    _EmptyBitmap = wx.Bitmap
    _BitmapFromBufferRGBA = wx.Bitmap.FromBufferRGBA
   # ...

How about more tricky cases like drawDC.BeginDrawing()/EndDrawing()? This could be something nice for a context manager or a decorator.

class _drawdccontext(object):
    def __init__(self, drawdc):
        self.drawdc = drawdc
    def __enter__(self):
        if is_classic:
            self.drawdc.BeginDrawing()
    def __exit__(self, type, value, traceback):
        if is_classic:
              self.drawdc.EndDrawing() 
# ...

    def gui_repaint(self, drawDC=None):
# ...
           with _drawdccontext(drawDC):
                drawDC.DrawBitmap(self.bitmap, 0, 0)
# instead of
           if 'phoenix' in wx.PlatformInfo:
               drawDC.DrawBitmap(self.bitmap, 0, 0)
           else:       
               drawDC.BeginDrawing()
               drawDC.DrawBitmap(self.bitmap, 0, 0)
               drawDC.EndDrawing()

Do I understand this correctly?

With best regards,

I haven't looked closely at all, so I might be missing something, but here is my reaction:

A context manager looks like overkill. I think a compatibility layer approach would look like this:

is_classic = 'phoenix' not in wx.PlatformInfo

if is_classic:
    def draw_bitmap(drawDC, *args):
        drawDC.BeginDrawing()
        drawDC.DrawBitmap(*args)
        drawDC.EndDrawing()
else:
    def draw_bitmap(DrawDC, *args):
        DrawDC.DrawBitmap(*args)

along with your other compatibility definitions. I would probably leave out the underscores, and then do

import wx_compat as compat
# stuff...
    compat.draw_bitmap(self.bitmap, 0, 0)

This would be analogous to using six for 2-3 compatibility. It makes it easy to see where the compatibility substitutions are.

@efiring : Went for the context manager because there is another occurrence of a longer-spanning BeginDrawing/EndDrawing block in draw_rubberband (see wernerfb@cbb1d4c#diff-19c3295dfd86eed49da406f5e5296055L1740).

For this the rather long code block had to be pulled out of context. But maybe there is a better solution for this than a contextmanager. Or an even easier to understand one like the one done by @wernerfb .

Just trying to find the best tool for the job.

As @RobinD42 (wxPython maintainer) pointed out in wxpython-users https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/wxpython-users/4NRdfJr79Gk, calls to drawDC.BeginDrawing()/EndDrawing() have never been more as C++ stubs and can be safely removed.

So much for the fancy decorating …

Will redo this on current master (1.4.0)

@wernerfb PRs track branches, not commits. You can just force-push to this branch to clean this up.