Setting up a PyCharm environment for a GTK Hello World on Windows

Question

I'm just trying to make a simple GTK Hello World app run in Pycharm.

I have installed PyCharm Community Edition 2016.2.
I have installed any combination of Anaconda (Python 2, Python 3, 32 bit, 64 bit).
I have downloaded a GTK hello world example

When I try to run this stuff, I first get the error

C:\Users\[...]\Anaconda3\python.exe C:/Users/[...]/PycharmProjects/HelloTk/hellotk.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:/Users/[...]/PycharmProjects/HelloTk/hellotk.py", line 3, in <module>
    import pygtk
ImportError: No module named 'pygtk'

Which I tried to resolve by the instructions on SO: How do I import modules in Pycharm. However, this does not work for the error

Collecting PyGTK
  Using cached pygtk-2.24.0.tar.bz2
    Complete output from command python setup.py egg_info:
    ERROR: Could not import dsextras module: Make sure you have installed pygobject.

Which brought me to the next step, installing pygobject. At first, this failed because of a missing pkg-config, which I installed according the instructions on Stack Overflow How to install pkg config in windows?. This seemed to work, but I now get the error

Collecting PyGObject
  Using cached pygobject-2.28.3.tar.bz2
    Complete output from command python setup.py egg_info:
    * glib-2.0.pc could not be found, bindings for glib._glib will not be built.
    ERROR: Nothing to do, glib could not be found and is essential.

Googling more, I found Installing PygObject via PIP in virtualenv, but the solution is for Linux only.

Since ~2h since I installed PyCharm and Anaconda I'm trying to compile a stupid simple Hello World program. How do I make it work and what was I doing wrong?

Unless I am misunderstanding, there are [pre-built installers](http://pygtk.org/downloads.html) for Windows — OneCricketeer, Aug 01 '16 at 19:50
Also GTK support is not that good on alternative OS' like Windows, so I'd rather use Linux distro for GTK based development if I were you. — Peter Nimroot, Aug 01 '16 at 19:52
Or switch to Qt instead of GTK for better cross-platform GUI support — OneCricketeer, Aug 01 '16 at 20:02
@cricket_007: GTK was recommended somewhere on SO as the best cross-platform choice. If I find it again, I'll certainly downvote that — Thomas Weller, Aug 01 '16 at 20:10
make sure you are using Anconda's `pip` than `/usr/bin/python` (or windows equivalent) type in `which python` and run `*which python location* -m pip install` — All Іѕ Vаиітy, Aug 02 '16 at 07:12

Szombatfalvi Hunor Gellèrt · Answer 1 · 2016-10-11T12:02:03.063

You need to download the latest installer for windows from: https://sourceforge.net/projects/pygobjectwin32/files/?source=navbar

Also, you must make sure you are not running python 3.5 or newer, the last supported version seems to be 3.4.x for GTK.

It took me a few hours to figure this out as the installer completes without complaining at all on 3.5 as well, it just doesn't install the package.

Regards,

Hunor

Edit: so, while this sort of works to install, i still can't get quite a few things to work in it :(

Setting up a PyCharm environment for a GTK Hello World on Windows

1 Answers1