| Re: GUI builder under Windows. And under LINUX ??? [message #43890] |
Wed, 04 May 2005 08:22 |
Thomas Pfaff
Messages: 15
Registered: April 2005
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Junior Member |
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David Fanning schrieb:
> Leopoldo Cicero writes:
>
>
>> I would like to develop a complete GUI application written in IDL. I
>> already did, using IDL under Linux, without using the UI builder.
>> Is it possible to use the GUI builder under Windows, then use the
>> generated code under Linux, and manually edit it ? What kind of advice
>> could you give me ?
>
>
> My advice? Forget it. :-)
>
> Although IDL is advertised as cross-platform (and is to a
> remarkable degree), you are about to learn how easy it is
> to write non-compatible code. Figuring out all the nuances,
> while immensely instructive, I figure will take you twice as long
> as writing the code yourself. But, I could be wrong. I'm not
> terribly familiar with the GUI Builder myself. :-)
>
> Cheers,
>
> David
If I may make this inaccurate comparison, what FrontPage is for HTML,
the GUI-Builder is for IDL.
You quickly get the code to set up a nice looking GUI, but according to
the rules of the GUI-Builder and most of the time it adds so many things
and switches which might not be necessary, just to make sure it looks
like you laid it out on the screen.
When I started writing HTML-pages I used something like Frontpage (
actually it was Netscape's Composer) but soon switched to writing the
code myself.
The same thing happened in IDL. You understand better the way your
program works, you only add those switches, that are absolutely
necessary, and some things (like buttons stacked onto a draw widget) are
just impossible to do with the GUI-builder.
However I think the widget routines themselves should be pretty
portable. The bigger problem might be if your layout will look the same
once you move to a different Window manager, if you use too much
explicit sizing (but you already read that in the IDL documentation)
Cheers,
Thomas
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| Re: GUI builder under Windows. And under LINUX ??? [message #43897 is a reply to message #43890] |
Wed, 04 May 2005 06:32  |
David Fanning
Messages: 11724
Registered: August 2001
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Senior Member |
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Leopoldo Cicero writes:
> I would like to develop a complete GUI application written in IDL. I
> already did, using IDL under Linux, without using the UI builder.
> Is it possible to use the GUI builder under Windows, then use the
> generated code under Linux, and manually edit it ? What kind of advice
> could you give me ?
My advice? Forget it. :-)
Although IDL is advertised as cross-platform (and is to a
remarkable degree), you are about to learn how easy it is
to write non-compatible code. Figuring out all the nuances,
while immensely instructive, I figure will take you twice as long
as writing the code yourself. But, I could be wrong. I'm not
terribly familiar with the GUI Builder myself. :-)
Cheers,
David
--
David Fanning, Ph.D.
Fanning Software Consulting, Inc.
Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.dfanning.com/
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