So, having subscribed recently to the ruby-talk mailing list, I''ve noticed that wxruby doesn''t seem to have the "respect" of other GUI libraries. I know GUI-library preference is a holy war almost up there with vi versus emacs, but since I''m a wxruby developer, I''d like to know what people "don''t" like about wxruby. Otherwise, how else do we improve? Browsing online, I''ve found a few complaints: Difficulty in getting it installed - Daniel Sheppard, http://www.jroller.com/page/soxbox/ Use of ugly integer values for event handlers - http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~naseby/31.html It''s a good start (though I don''t know what platform Mr. Sheppard is trying to install on), but any other discussion would be most helpful. Thanks, Nick
I like wxRuby and here are the pitfalls I think it has: - documentation is not up to date. it is missing classes, methods, etc... that are implemented, but aren''t in the API, see http://wxruby.rubyforge.org/wxrubydoc.html - the Widgets Supported page is out of date, see http://wxruby.rubyforge.org/wiki/wiki.pl?Widgets_Supported Last night on IRC, i asked a few questions in general about using the different Gui toolkits that are available for ruby, and some folks said that in general: - they don''t like referring to c++ documentation. - they have an impression that wxRuby is still real young - they are waiting for wxRuby to support all widgets Zach
Zach Dennis wrote:> > - they don''t like referring to c++ documentation. > - they have an impression that wxRuby is still real young > - they are waiting for wxRuby to support all widgetsPersonally, I think those are the biggest drawbacks of wxruby right now. Basically, it''s "not done yet". After we get to the point where all the widgets are supported, and there are no big bugs (like crashes or memory leaks), and everything is easy to install and well documented, then we will face the next big drawback: Parts of the API are clunky and non-ruby-like. That can be fixed with wrappers, or where necessary, non-compatible changes in the API. The final challenge will be any negative aspects of wxWindows itself that are difficult or impossible to wrap or hide. Hopefully there won''t be too many of those, but I suspect there will be some. On the bright side, wx is still the only liberally-licensed, full-featured, native-widget, cross-platform GUI toolkit. If those features are important to you, then wx is really where you want to be. Kevin
Kevin Smith wrote:> On the bright side, wx is still the only liberally-licensed, > full-featured, native-widget, cross-platform GUI toolkit. If those > features are important to you, then wx is really where you want to be. >Can I get the same license on that statement, so I can post in on the Ruby ML when people ask about Ruby/GUIs? Zach
Zach Dennis wrote:> Kevin Smith wrote: > >> On the bright side, wx is still the only liberally-licensed, >> full-featured, native-widget, cross-platform GUI toolkit. If those >> features are important to you, then wx is really where you want to be. >> > > Can I get the same license on that statement, so I can post in on the > Ruby ML when people ask about Ruby/GUIs?:-) Feel free to use that statement, or any derivative, any way you see fit, and I encourage you to do so without attributing it to me. I just hope it''s true :-/ Be aware that at any moment, if a new contender pops up, it may no longer be true. I suppose if you added "mature" in there somewhere, it would remain true for several more years, but wxruby itself isn''t yet "mature", so that would only apply to wxWindows/wxWidgets itself. Kevin
To add to my last post: I''d also love to hear if you do GUI developement and haven''t tried wxruby, why haven''t you tried it? Nick Nick wrote:> > > Any chance you could provide a simplified interface along the lines > > discussed at length in > > > > > http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.ruby/messages/36fe4224ced792ff,7824fe1d05b4f648,ffa0c9b33be25877,453e05fefa6610b4,79dd1925715e2b10,3c7c01a279f685f6,fc636d28f68f9266,78ac98a3c718caa4,4f3960a377f7eed1,99bd3fcd397cf7d1?thread_id=b901e483a6711f72&mode=thread&noheader=1&q=UI+hal+fulton#doc_36fe4224ced792ff > > > > > It basically let''s Ruby code look structurally like the ui structure, > and > > uses some variation of dynamic binding to more cleanly define, > override, and > > lookup wide-ranging defaults. > > It''s a good suggestion, though a little outside the scope of the > wxWidgets project. Lit window has conceptually similar to what your > talking about for C++. > > http://www.litwindow.com/lwl/doc/html/comparison_10x.html > > I don''t want this to get into a battle of which GUI toolkit is more > virtuous; there are different toolkits because people want different > functionality. I''d like to hear from anybody who has tried wxruby and > didn''t like it, and why they didn''t like it. > > Nick > > itsme213 wrote: > >> Any chance you could provide a simplified interface along the lines >> discussed at length in >> >> http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.ruby/messages/36fe4224ced792ff,7824fe1d05b4f648,ffa0c9b33be25877,453e05fefa6610b4,79dd1925715e2b10,3c7c01a279f685f6,fc636d28f68f9266,78ac98a3c718caa4,4f3960a377f7eed1,99bd3fcd397cf7d1?thread_id=b901e483a6711f72&mode=thread&noheader=1&q=UI+hal+fulton#doc_36fe4224ced792ff >> >> >> It basically let''s Ruby code look structurally like the ui structure, and >> uses some variation of dynamic binding to more cleanly define, >> override, and >> lookup wide-ranging defaults. >> >> I for one would gravitate strongly towards such a simplified interface >> ... >> >> "Nick" <devel@nicreations.com> wrote in message >> news:41BEFE07.5080304@nicreations.com... >> >>> So, having subscribed recently to the ruby-talk mailing list, I''ve >>> noticed that wxruby doesn''t seem to have the "respect" of other GUI >>> libraries. I know GUI-library preference is a holy war almost up there >>> with vi versus emacs, but since I''m a wxruby developer, I''d like to know >>> what people "don''t" like about wxruby. Otherwise, how else do we >>> improve? >>> >>> Browsing online, I''ve found a few complaints: >>> >>> Difficulty in getting it installed - Daniel Sheppard, >>> http://www.jroller.com/page/soxbox/ >>> Use of ugly integer values for event handlers - >>> http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~naseby/31.html >>> >>> It''s a good start (though I don''t know what platform Mr. Sheppard is >>> trying to install on), but any other discussion would be most helpful. >>> >>> Thanks, >>> >>> Nick >>> >>> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> > > > > >