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Part 8 of this project

History

Keep a recent lookup history

Goal for this part

Keep a recent lookup history.

Treat 08-History as the source of truth for this checkpoint. If your local tree drifted, re-clone that folder rather than mixing files from neighbors.

What you should already know

You do not need prior wxPython experience for part 1. Later parts assume you finished the earlier snapshots on the same machine.

  • You can open a terminal and run python3
  • You are comfortable editing a .py file and saving it
  • You have a desktop session (not a headless SSH box without display forwarding)

Why wxPython fits Wordwell

wxPython gives native-feeling widgets on multiple platforms. A dictionary is a focused search + detail UI.

Typeahead list plus definition pane teaches filtering large lists without a full database server.

Checkpoint

After you run the snapshot, you should recognize the behavior described in the goal—before you move on. If the window (or server) never appears, stop and fix the run steps.

Code shape

Snapshots stay small on purpose. Look for this kind of core call as you read the folder:

data = json.load(open("words.json"))

How to run it

Clone the teaching repo, open 08-History, install what the README asks for, then run python app.py.

git clone https://github.com/michaeldunga1/fcc-wxpython-dictionary.git
cd fcc-wxpython-dictionary/08-History
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r ../requirements.txt
python app.py

Common mistakes

  • Ignoring platform-specific install notes in the snapshot README
  • Persisting preferences without a defaults fallback
  • Storing secrets in plain text beside the app
  • Forgetting to reload prefs after a restart

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