Because Hotwire is currently written entirely in Python, we generally follow the Python style guidelines.

Specific style choices made here:

• Use 4 spaces for indentation; no tabs
• Always subclass from object or gobject.GObject
• Initialize all object members in the __init__ constructor, or in functions called directly from it.
• Use the _ prefix for "protected" members, and the __ prefix for private members.
• For important properties, use the property mechanism and add a docstring.
• Files which import gtk (generallly hotwire_ui and hotapps) should be GPL, others are MIT.

Overall architecture:

• Never call functions which can block on I/O from the main thread. Instead, create a worker thread and use gobject.idle_add to communicate results to the main loop.
• The only hard dependencies are Python 2.4, and GTK+ 2.8. However - please do try to integrate with the rest of the system (using the platform's file thumbnailing API, notification system, etc.) by adding optional code. For example, you can add a new method to an interface in sysdep, and implement it for your platform.