In a newly-defined virtual environment under python 3.12.3 (yes, I know that’s too far) wxpython will not load when using requirements.txt. I find that I MUST have pre-installed wheel and attrdict. Furthermore, pip is not finding wxpython at 4.2.0 for my MacOS system, so I’ve installed 4.2.1 (yes, I realize that you’ve restricted wxpython to 4.2.0 or less.)
This is a known bug in wxPython's 4.2.0 macos package, which has been fixed in 4.2.1. You don't need anything other than wxPython==4.2.1 (or > of course) and it'll work as-is without adding attrdict. There should be no reason to add wheel, AFAIK.
I am not planning to submit this as a change, and it’s something that I consider too global a modification for my pay grade, and I surely don’t understand what ramifications of using wxpython > 4.2.0 could be!
Well, the reason I haven't bumped it is that 4.2.1 has a nasty bug on macos that causes new windows to open at the bottom of the stack in the window manager. It's been fixed in git, but we're waiting for another release before it can be installable.
IIRC, adding attrdict on Linux breaks things for GTK in some way, which is why it's not in there (it shouldn't need to be anyway). I guess maybe we could add it *only* for macos. I can do some poking around and maybe queue that up, but TBH I've just been kinda ignoring this whole hot mess it until the next package release comes out.
--Dan