This document provides an overview of the SOFA statistics application. SOFA is a free and open source desktop reporting, analysis and statistics package that aims to make statistics more accessible and easy to use. It has over 25,000 downloads and runs on Windows, Mac and Linux. The application is built with Python, wxPython for the GUI, Matplotlib for charts, and the Dojo Javascript library. It allows importing of data from various sources like SQLite, MySQL and Excel. Users can generate HTML reports with tables, charts and images that are printable and web-ready. Internationalization support is provided for several languages so far.

1. SOFA
Paton-Simpson & Associates Ltd
Auckland, New Zealand
SOFA Statistics
Developing an Application in Python
Grant Paton-Simpson
sofastatistics.com

2. SOFA
Paton-Simpson & Associates Ltd
Auckland, New Zealand
Overview
● Focusing on the SOFA application
● Touching on topics like:
● GUI toolkits
● Integrating web tech into desktop
● Internationalisation
● Resources for open source projects
● Promoting a project ...
● Please ask questions

3. SOFA
Paton-Simpson & Associates Ltd
Auckland, New Zealand
SOFA Introduction
● Statistics – technical, intimidating, and … essential
● SOFA – Making Statistics Open For All
● Desktop reporting, analysis and stats package
● Gap in market
● free and open source
● ease of use
● learn as you go
● beautiful output

4. SOFA
Paton-Simpson & Associates Ltd
Auckland, New Zealand
Introduction cont ...
● Good response - over 25,000 downloads so far
● Runs on Windows, Mac, Linux
● Released under AGPL3 open source licence
● Built with Python, wxPython, Matplotlib,
and the Dojo Javascript/SVG library

5. SOFA Architecture
SQLite
MySQL
MS Access
Linking
Python scripts
ready to glue
together
PostgreSQL
SQL Server
Excel CSV
GoogleODF
Importing
HTML with
Javascript and
dynamic images.
Printable and
web-ready.
Display within
SOFA GUI

6. SOFA Architecture
SQLite
MySQL
MS Access
Linking
PostgreSQL
SQL Server
HTML with
Javascript and
dynamic images.
Printable and
web-ready.
(no GUI)

7. HTML Report Table Output
● Complex tables possible – nesting, row and col %s, std dev, raw data etc
● Can copy and paste into spreadsheet
● Themable and ready for sharing

8. Dojo Javascript/SVG Toolkit for Charts
● Needed to build single Dojo script, modify, and minify
● Needed decent web rendering engine for wxPython on each platform

9. Matplotlib for Auxiliary Charts
● Histograms, clustered bar charts, and scatterplots
● Boomslang for clustered bar charts

10. Cross-Platform wxPython GUI Toolkit
● Native widgets
● If you can figure out how, you can probably do it

11. Internationalised
● Have to think unicode at every point
● Use standard approaches – pot, mo files, gettext, _() function
● Launchpad makes it easy
● English, Croatian, Spanish, Russian, Galician, & Breton so far

12. Encouraging Responses

13. Demonstration