GUI doesn't look so good with the wxpython backend in MayaVi

[moorepants]

The background is dark and the font colors for the text are dark. Maybe there are some default settings that would make it look better.

[moorepants]

This is fundamentally a mayavi bug:

https://mail.enthought.com/pipermail/enthought-dev/2013-December/032710.html

[moorepants]

If you export this environment variable before loading yeadon you can force the GUI backend to be what you like:

export ETS_TOOLKIT='qt4'

[chrisdembia]

Can yeadon override the backend setting?

[moorepants]

If you export that environment variable then it can use an alternative backend. The default is wx (at least in Ubuntu).

[moorepants]

You could also set the environment variable in the software if the qt4 lib is available. But you need to check for pyqt first I guess.

[moorepants]

Some examples: http://docs.enthought.com/mayavi/mayavi/auto/example_qt_embedding.html

[moorepants]

Something like this as the top of gui.py might be good:

try:
    import pyface.qt
except ImportError:
    pass
else:
    import os
    os.environ['ETS_TOOLKIT'] = 'qt4'

[moorepants]

But this is not really our bug. It is a bug for MayaVi, Traits, Envisage, Ubuntu, etc.

[moorepants]

WX backend on Ubuntu 13.10 (screen resolution 1366 x 768):

QT4 Backend on Ubuntu 13.10 (screen resolution 1366 x 768):

Notice that the wx one looks bad and the qt does not have a maximize button, nor does it fit the screen vertically.

[moorepants]

These are new screenshots using Anaconda 2.0.1 on Ubuntu 14.04.

Things are better for the QT version.

[chrisdembia]

What should we do about this?

[moorepants]

1. Report bugs upstream
2. Add some code that sets the env var if qt is available.
3. Add a command line flag or something to the GUI() call that allows you to specify the backend for Mayavi.