4 ms·

what about tcl/tk for GUI? mature, fast, and ubiquitous

by ausjke 9y ago

coldtea 9y ago
Also atrocious looking and alien feeling on every system.
- bch 9y ago
  Are you recalling the 1990s, or contemporary Tcl/Tk [0][1]? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tk-Demo_using_Tk_8.6.6_on_Windows_10,_November_2016.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tk-Demo_using_Tk_8.6.6_on... [1] http://www.tkdocs.com/tutorial/idle.html http://www.tkdocs.com/tutorial/idle.html
  - cturner 9y ago
    I am using python to wrap Windows-C this week. I tried Idle again for the first time in years. Its text navigation is nasty, and caused me to go to shift editor. For example, ctrl+shift+arrows highlighting is something I do all the time and Idle's behaviour is inconsistent with Windows convention. It is hard to know how to make it mainstream from where it is. If they changed keyboard behaviour to align with Windows-convention, it may annoy parts of its existing userbase who have become accustomed to it.
  - jcelerier 9y ago
    quite frankly, the two screenshots you posted are atrocious and a good reason to show people why one wouldn't use TCL/Tk
    - bch 9y ago
      Genuinely curious - I’d like to see a more in depth criticism and/or compare/contrast side-by-side.
      - jcelerier 9y ago
        * the spacing between items is entirely wrong * the bezels don't look native (but look pretty much like 1990 toolkits like Motif) * In your first screenshot: - The checkbox seemingly changes size whenever it's checked or not. - Likewise for the radio button, and the "small" one for some reason seems aliased or something like this. - The small Tk logo in the tree view is also aliased and let's not talk about the canvas which looks like it's taken straight from a 1990's example. - The tab sizes are weird and the spacing between the icon, the text and the border is uncanny, to say the least. Here's some example with Qt : https://i.stack.imgur.com/eoHaS.png https://i.stack.imgur.com/eoHaS.png or GTK: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2010-04/pngNPjIJBIA63.png https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2010-04/pngNP... - The form containers (Label 1, Label 2, Label 3, Label 4) all have different sizes ; their bottom should be aligned. * For your second screenshot, hre's another one fairly similar in concept (looks like it's made with GTK), but much prettier: https://i.stack.imgur.com/7v6Ja.png https://i.stack.imgur.com/7v6Ja.png The most blatant thing is that the label "Direction" isn't aligned at all with the widgets that follow it. The placement of the widgets seems quite random, too. And why is there so much vertical spacing between the three rows of widgets ? But overall, notice how all the widgets in the GTK one line up nicely and have consistent margin and padding. As an example I did a rough sketch (without caring too much) of the UI of the first screen shot with Qt. It took me 17 minutes (http://sendvid.com/f6gbp6el http://sendvid.com/f6gbp6el), with no prior try and without of a lot of habit with the Qt designer: https://i.imgur.com/4MLh48R.png https://i.imgur.com/4MLh48R.png and already I find it to look more professionnal (except of course the goofy canvas try :p). Another fifteen minutes and I feel like most of the Tk ui could be matched without too much stress.
- xeeeeeeeeeeenu 9y ago
  Not true. It uses native themes under Windows and OS X.
  - jitl 9y ago
    http://www.tkdocs.com/images/idle_onewindow.png http://www.tkdocs.com/images/idle_onewindow.png Sure it has “native” widgets... but the layouts created have horrible, alien spacing and design. This is completely unacceptable look and feel for a consumer macOS program.
    - bch 9y ago
      Can you expound on that?
- ausjke 9y ago
  tk works with multiple script languages and does have a nice looking these days, probably not fancy, but get the job done quickly and good enough for most use cases.
throwaway7645 9y ago
I've written a few minor Tk based apps in Python and if you look at Rebol (Red's ancestor) it is much much much easier to build a similar GUI. This Rebol guy has several sites where he builds dozens of small applications that are almost freaking one liners: http://guitarz.org/howtomakeaprogram.com/howtomakeaprogram.html http://guitarz.org/howtomakeaprogram.com/howtomakeaprogram.h... http://easiestprogramminglanguage.com/easiest_programming_language.html http://easiestprogramminglanguage.com/easiest_programming_la... http://business-programming.com/business_programming.html http://business-programming.com/business_programming.html http://personal-programming.com/personal-programming.html http://personal-programming.com/personal-programming.html

what about tcl/tk for GUI? mature, fast, and ubiquitous

by ausjke 9y ago

what about tcl/tk for GUI? mature, fast, and ubiquitous

coldtea 9y ago

Also atrocious looking and alien feeling on every system.

bch 9y ago
Are you recalling the 1990s, or contemporary Tcl/Tk [0][1]? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tk-Demo_using_Tk_8.6.6_on_Windows_10,_November_2016.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tk-Demo_using_Tk_8.6.6_on... [1] http://www.tkdocs.com/tutorial/idle.html http://www.tkdocs.com/tutorial/idle.html
- cturner 9y ago
  I am using python to wrap Windows-C this week. I tried Idle again for the first time in years. Its text navigation is nasty, and caused me to go to shift editor. For example, ctrl+shift+arrows highlighting is something I do all the time and Idle's behaviour is inconsistent with Windows convention. It is hard to know how to make it mainstream from where it is. If they changed keyboard behaviour to align with Windows-convention, it may annoy parts of its existing userbase who have become accustomed to it.
- jcelerier 9y ago
  quite frankly, the two screenshots you posted are atrocious and a good reason to show people why one wouldn't use TCL/Tk
  - bch 9y ago
    Genuinely curious - I’d like to see a more in depth criticism and/or compare/contrast side-by-side.
    - jcelerier 9y ago
      * the spacing between items is entirely wrong * the bezels don't look native (but look pretty much like 1990 toolkits like Motif) * In your first screenshot: - The checkbox seemingly changes size whenever it's checked or not. - Likewise for the radio button, and the "small" one for some reason seems aliased or something like this. - The small Tk logo in the tree view is also aliased and let's not talk about the canvas which looks like it's taken straight from a 1990's example. - The tab sizes are weird and the spacing between the icon, the text and the border is uncanny, to say the least. Here's some example with Qt : https://i.stack.imgur.com/eoHaS.png https://i.stack.imgur.com/eoHaS.png or GTK: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2010-04/pngNPjIJBIA63.png https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2010-04/pngNP... - The form containers (Label 1, Label 2, Label 3, Label 4) all have different sizes ; their bottom should be aligned. * For your second screenshot, hre's another one fairly similar in concept (looks like it's made with GTK), but much prettier: https://i.stack.imgur.com/7v6Ja.png https://i.stack.imgur.com/7v6Ja.png The most blatant thing is that the label "Direction" isn't aligned at all with the widgets that follow it. The placement of the widgets seems quite random, too. And why is there so much vertical spacing between the three rows of widgets ? But overall, notice how all the widgets in the GTK one line up nicely and have consistent margin and padding. As an example I did a rough sketch (without caring too much) of the UI of the first screen shot with Qt. It took me 17 minutes (http://sendvid.com/f6gbp6el http://sendvid.com/f6gbp6el), with no prior try and without of a lot of habit with the Qt designer: https://i.imgur.com/4MLh48R.png https://i.imgur.com/4MLh48R.png and already I find it to look more professionnal (except of course the goofy canvas try :p). Another fifteen minutes and I feel like most of the Tk ui could be matched without too much stress.
xeeeeeeeeeeenu 9y ago
Not true. It uses native themes under Windows and OS X.
- jitl 9y ago
  http://www.tkdocs.com/images/idle_onewindow.png http://www.tkdocs.com/images/idle_onewindow.png Sure it has “native” widgets... but the layouts created have horrible, alien spacing and design. This is completely unacceptable look and feel for a consumer macOS program.
  - bch 9y ago
    Can you expound on that?
ausjke 9y ago
tk works with multiple script languages and does have a nice looking these days, probably not fancy, but get the job done quickly and good enough for most use cases.

throwaway7645 9y ago

I've written a few minor Tk based apps in Python and if you look at Rebol (Red's ancestor) it is much much much easier to build a similar GUI. This Rebol guy has several sites where he builds dozens of small applications that are almost freaking one liners: http://guitarz.org/howtomakeaprogram.com/howtomakeaprogram.html http://guitarz.org/howtomakeaprogram.com/howtomakeaprogram.h... http://easiestprogramminglanguage.com/easiest_programming_language.html http://easiestprogramminglanguage.com/easiest_programming_la... http://business-programming.com/business_programming.html http://business-programming.com/business_programming.html http://personal-programming.com/personal-programming.html http://personal-programming.com/personal-programming.html