Adding a text control window to a wxMessageDialog box/AboutDialogInfo in wxPython

Question

I am working with python v2.7 and wxPython v3.0 on Windows 7 OS.

In my app I have a about menu. Upon clicking the about menu I want to display some information about my app. I am trying to create a dialog box/AboutBox exactly as shown in the image below.(This is the about dialog of notepad++. Click on ? in the menu bar of notepad++.)

The special thing about the dialog box of notepad++ is that I need a text control window too. One can copy the info.

I tried to do the same in wxPython, but unfortunately I failed. I tried two different hit and trial approaches.

1. I tried to add the text control window to the dialog box wxMessageDialog but it doesn't shows up at all.

2. I tried to use the AboutBox in wxPython, and tried to add the text control to it but it failed because the AboutDialogInfo is not a window and the parent of the text control should be of a window type.

Error:
    aboutPanel = wx.TextCtrl(info, -1, style = wx.TE_MULTILINE|wx.TE_READONLY|wx.HSCROLL)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\wx-3.0-msw\wx\_controls.py", line 2019, in __init__
    _controls_.TextCtrl_swiginit(self,_controls_.new_TextCtrl(*args, **kwargs))
TypeError: in method 'new_TextCtrl', expected argument 1 of type 'wxWindow *'

It would be great if someone could provide some idea on how to add a text control windows to a dialog box/AboutBox?

Code: Here is my code sample for playing around:

import wx
from wx.lib.wordwrap import wordwrap

class gui(wx.Frame):
    def __init__(self, parent, id, title):
        wx.Frame.__init__(self,None, id, title, style=wx.DEFAULT_FRAME_STYLE)
        panel1 = wx.Panel(self, -1)
        panel1.SetBackgroundColour('#fffaaa')
        menuBar = wx.MenuBar()
        file = wx.Menu()
        file.Append(101, '&About1', 'About1')
        file.Append(102, '&About2', 'About2')
        menuBar.Append(file, '&File')
        self.SetMenuBar(menuBar)
        wx.EVT_MENU(self, 101, self.onAbout)# Event for the About1 menu
        wx.EVT_MENU(self, 102, self.onAboutDlg)# Event for the About2 menu

    def onAbout(self, event):
        message = 'This fantastic app was developed using wxPython.\nwxPython is c00l :)'
        dlg = wx.MessageDialog(self, message, 'My APP', wx.OK|wx.ICON_INFORMATION)
        aboutPanel = wx.TextCtrl(dlg, -1, style = wx.TE_MULTILINE|wx.TE_READONLY|wx.HSCROLL)
        aboutPanel.WriteText('Experimentation is the part of our life.\n')
        dlg.ShowModal()
        dlg.Destroy()

    def onAboutDlg(self, event):
        self.panel = wx.Panel(self, -1)
        info = wx.AboutDialogInfo()
        info.Name = "My About Box"
        info.Version = "0.1"
        info.Copyright = "(C) 2014 xxx"
        info.Description = wordwrap(
        "This is an example application that shows the problem "
        "that I am facing :)",
        350, wx.ClientDC(self.panel))
        info.WebSite = ("http://stackoverflow.com/users/2382792/pss", "My Home Page")
        info.Developers = ["PSS"]
        info.License = wordwrap("Driving license and a AK-47 too :P ", 500,wx.ClientDC(self.panel))
        #    Uncomment the following line to get the error! 
        #aboutPanel = wx.TextCtrl(info, -1, style = wx.TE_MULTILINE|wx.TE_READONLY|wx.HSCROLL)
        #aboutPanel.WriteText('Experimentation is the part of our life.\n')
        wx.AboutBox(info)


if __name__ == '__main__':
    app = wx.App()
    frame = gui(parent=None, id=-1, title="My-App")
    frame.Show()
    app.MainLoop()

Thank you for your time!

Answer 1

wxAboutBox() uses the standard about dialog for the current platform so it won't help you to achieve your goal. Similarly, wxMessageDialog is the native message box dialog which, again, can't have your custom text box. OTOH there is absolutely no problem with building any dialog you want using wxDialog and adding elements to it (and using sizers to lay them out).

IOW your mistake is to think that the class you need to use is wxMessageDialog: it isn't, you need wxDialog.