Is it possible to create a modeless window with wxPython which stays along (to display text info)?

Question

Quite new with UI and python, I am wondering if it's possible to have a window (in my case with wxPython) which stays alive all the time until we destroy it, to perform many other actions in the meantime. If so, where the main running code should be? Here is an example where it is wrong and doesn't work of course:

from time import sleep
import wx


def do_actions(g):
    for i in range(100):
        print('Iteration: ', i)
        g.SetValue(i)
        sleep(1)


class MyFrame(wx.Frame):
    def __init__(self, parent, id, title):
        wx.Frame.__init__(self, parent, id, title)

        panel = wx.Panel(self, -1)
        self.gauge = wx.Gauge(panel, -1, 50, size=(250, 25))

        do_actions(self.gauge)


class MyApp(wx.App):
    def OnInit(self):
        frame = MyFrame(None, -1, 'wx.Gauge')
        frame.Show(True)


app = MyApp(0)
app.MainLoop()

Answer 1

You are probably trying to run, before you've learnt to walk but there's nothing wrong with ambition.
You will need to read up on threading/multiprocessing i.e. running separate processes at the same time.
wxPython has a single main event loop, which is used to monitor all of the the GUI events, so that has to be in control at all times.
We fire up a thread to run each job and the GUI updates are issued as events.

That's probably not a very good explanation so here is a bit of simplistic test code, which illustrates one way of setting this up. The threads only run for a limited time but obviously, you can adjust that.
Hopefully, you can pick the bones out of this enough to get you started.

import time
import wx
from threading import Thread
import wx.lib.newevent
progress_event, EVT_PROGRESS_EVENT = wx.lib.newevent.NewEvent()

class MainFrame(wx.Frame):

    def __init__(self):
        wx.Frame.__init__(self, None, title='Main Frame', size=(400,400))
        panel = MyPanel(self)
        self.Show()

class MyPanel(wx.Panel):

    def __init__(self, parent):
        wx.Panel.__init__(self, parent)
        self.text_count = 0
        self.parent=parent
        self.process1 = None
        self.process2 = None
        self.jobs = []
        self.btn_start = wx.Button(self, wx.ID_ANY, label='Start Long running process', size=(180,30), pos=(10,10))
        btn_test = wx.Button(self, wx.ID_ANY, label='Is the GUI still active?', size=(180,30), pos=(10,50))
        self.txt = wx.TextCtrl(self, wx.ID_ANY, style= wx.TE_MULTILINE, pos=(10,90),size=(300,100))

        self.btn_start.Bind(wx.EVT_BUTTON, self.Start_Process)
        btn_test.Bind(wx.EVT_BUTTON, self.ActiveText)

    def Start_Process(self, event):
        self.process1 = ProcessingFrame(title='Threaded Task 1', parent=self, job_no=1)
        self.jobs.append(1)
        self.process2 = ProcessingFrame(title='Threaded Task 2', parent=self, job_no=2)
        self.jobs.append(2)        
        self.btn_start.Enable(False)

    def ActiveText(self,event):
        self.text_count += 1
        txt = "Gui is still active " + str(self.text_count)+"\n"
        self.txt.write(txt)
        if self.process1:
            txt = "process1 alive "+str(self.process1.mythread.is_alive())+"\n"
        else:
            txt = "process1 is dead\n"
        if self.process2:
            txt += "process2 alive "+str(self.process2.mythread.is_alive())+"\n"
        else:
            txt += "process2 is dead\n"
        self.txt.write(txt)

class ProcessingFrame(wx.Frame):

    def __init__(self, title, parent=None,job_no=None):
        wx.Frame.__init__(self, parent=parent, title=title, size=(400,400))
        panel = wx.Panel(self)
        self.parent = parent
        self.job_no = job_no
        self.btn = wx.Button(panel,label='Stop processing', size=(200,30), pos=(10,10))
        self.btn.Bind(wx.EVT_BUTTON, self.OnExit)
        self.btn_pause = wx.Button(panel,label='Pause processing', size=(200,30), pos=(10,50))
        self.btn_pause.Bind(wx.EVT_BUTTON, self.OnPause)
        self.progress = wx.Gauge(panel,size=(200,10), pos=(10,90), range=60)
        self.process = wx.TextCtrl(panel,size = (200,250), pos=(10,120), style = wx.TE_MULTILINE)
        #Bind to the progress event issued by the thread
        self.Bind(EVT_PROGRESS_EVENT, self.OnProgress)
        #Bind to Exit on frame close
        self.Bind(wx.EVT_CLOSE, self.OnExit)
        self.Show()

        self.mythread = TestThread(self)

    def OnProgress(self, event):
        self.progress.SetValue(event.count)
        self.process.write(event.process+"\n")
        self.Refresh()
        if event.count >= 60:
            self.OnExit(None)

    def OnExit(self, event):
        if self.mythread.is_alive():
            self.mythread.terminate() # Shutdown the thread
            self.mythread.join() # Wait for it to finish
            self.parent.jobs.remove(self.job_no)
            if not self.parent.jobs:
                self.parent.btn_start.Enable(True)
        self.Destroy()

    def OnPause(self, event):
        if self.mythread.is_alive():
            self.mythread.pause() # Pause the thread

class TestThread(Thread):
    def __init__(self,parent_target):
        Thread.__init__(self)
        self.target = parent_target
        self.stopthread = False
        self.process = 1 # Testing only - mock process id
        self.start()    # start the thread

    def run(self):
        # A selectable test loop that will run for 60 loops then terminate
        if self.target.job_no == 1:
            self.run1()
        else:
            self.run2()

    def run1(self):
        curr_loop = 0
        while self.stopthread != True:
            if self.stopthread == "Pause":
                time.sleep(1)
                continue
            curr_loop += 1
            self.process += 10 # Testing only - mock process id
            if curr_loop <= 60: # Update progress bar
                time.sleep(1.0)
                evt = progress_event(count=curr_loop,process="Envoking process "+str(self.process))
                #Send back current count for the progress bar
                try:
                    wx.PostEvent(self.target, evt)
                except: # The parent frame has probably been destroyed
                    self.terminate()
        self.terminate()

    def run2(self):
        curr_loop = 0
        while self.stopthread != True:
            if self.stopthread == "Pause":
                time.sleep(1)
                continue
            curr_loop += 1
            self.process += 100 # Testing only - mock process id
            if curr_loop <= 60: # Update progress bar
                time.sleep(1.0)
                evt = progress_event(count=curr_loop,process="Checking process"+str(self.process))
                #Send back current count for the progress bar
                try:
                    wx.PostEvent(self.target, evt)
                except: # The parent frame has probably been destroyed
                    self.terminate()
        self.terminate()

    def terminate(self):
        self.stopthread = True

    def pause(self):
        if self.stopthread == "Pause":
            self.stopthread = False
            self.target.btn_pause.SetLabel('Pause processing')
        else:
            self.stopthread = "Pause"
            self.target.btn_pause.SetLabel('Continue processing')

if __name__ == '__main__':
    app = wx.App(False)
    frame = MainFrame()
    app.MainLoop()