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I recently tried to use Swing (for compat. and interop. reasons). While it was obviously "quirky" (partly just from it's age - some of those "quirks" were expec

by pdkl95 8y ago

I recently tried to use Swing (for compat. and interop. reasons). While it was obviously "quirky" (partly just from it's age - some of those "quirks" were expected behavior at the time), it appeared to at least be functional. I have very simple GUI needs for this project, slapping a basic UI onto the project shouldn't be that hard, right? Then I discovered the multiple layers of hell of Swing's various layout managers. I never thought I'd actually find something worse than packing GTK+ {h,v}boxes. I think I might end up retreating back to Tk...

stcredzero 8y ago
Tcl/Tk interfaces look goofy, but they're very easy to build. You can even build them on a REPL. It's also very easy to understand what they do when you resize. That's going back quite awhile. Why is it that later layout managers just seemed to get a bit worse then stay that way?
Gibbon1 8y ago
> might end up retreating back to Tk You could cross over to the dark side and embrace the Microsoft Heresy. C#/.net Upside: Just works Downside: Other programmers will hate you.
- tombert 8y ago
  How well does the .NET stuff work across platforms nowadays? Can I conceivably have a "write once, compile anywhere" mentality? Conceivably if it is any good, you could get programmers to hate you a little more or less by using F#.
  - Gibbon1 8y ago
    There is .net Core, but that doesn't currently have any GUI frameworks. My rough impression is cross platform you have three options, web crappy, full native, and non-native. The last you may be native on one platform and look/act weird everywhere else. That said I like stuff built on wxWidgets. There are bindings for other languages, never used them tho.
    - tombert 8y ago
      I have a visceral (possibly undeserved) hatred of C++, so WxWidgets and Qt are out; as it stands it looks like for what I need I'm stuck with Electron for my GUI stuff, since I don't want the JVM dependency.
      - Gibbon1 8y ago
        There are wrappers for python, again never used either.
      - pdkl95 8y ago
        There is always Tk. It's a very friendly (no sudden unexpected behavior), easy to use toolkit. https://tkdocs.com/tutorial/index.html https://tkdocs.com/tutorial/index.html Tk works more or less everywhere and sometimes already installed: https://tkdocs.com/tutorial/install.html https://tkdocs.com/tutorial/install.html and you don't need to use tcl: https://tkdocs.com/resources/languages.html https://tkdocs.com/resources/languages.html If you don't like Python, Ruby, Perl, or Tcl, other bindings are available: https://wiki.tcl-lang.org/page/Languages+with+a+Tk+binding https://wiki.tcl-lang.org/page/Languages+with+a+Tk+binding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tk_%28software%29#Language_bindings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tk_%28software%29#Language_bin... While the stock look-and-feel is functional-but-bland on all platforms, modern Tk is completely customizable and can approximate native widgets: https://tkdocs.com/tutorial/windows.html#dialogs https://tkdocs.com/tutorial/windows.html#dialogs

by pdkl95 8y ago

stcredzero 8y ago

Tcl/Tk interfaces look goofy, but they're very easy to build. You can even build them on a REPL. It's also very easy to understand what they do when you resize. That's going back quite awhile. Why is it that later layout managers just seemed to get a bit worse then stay that way?

Gibbon1 8y ago

> might end up retreating back to Tk You could cross over to the dark side and embrace the Microsoft Heresy. C#/.net Upside: Just works Downside: Other programmers will hate you.

tombert 8y ago
How well does the .NET stuff work across platforms nowadays? Can I conceivably have a "write once, compile anywhere" mentality? Conceivably if it is any good, you could get programmers to hate you a little more or less by using F#.
- Gibbon1 8y ago
  There is .net Core, but that doesn't currently have any GUI frameworks. My rough impression is cross platform you have three options, web crappy, full native, and non-native. The last you may be native on one platform and look/act weird everywhere else. That said I like stuff built on wxWidgets. There are bindings for other languages, never used them tho.
  - tombert 8y ago
    I have a visceral (possibly undeserved) hatred of C++, so WxWidgets and Qt are out; as it stands it looks like for what I need I'm stuck with Electron for my GUI stuff, since I don't want the JVM dependency.
    - Gibbon1 8y ago
      There are wrappers for python, again never used either.
    - pdkl95 8y ago
      There is always Tk. It's a very friendly (no sudden unexpected behavior), easy to use toolkit. https://tkdocs.com/tutorial/index.html https://tkdocs.com/tutorial/index.html Tk works more or less everywhere and sometimes already installed: https://tkdocs.com/tutorial/install.html https://tkdocs.com/tutorial/install.html and you don't need to use tcl: https://tkdocs.com/resources/languages.html https://tkdocs.com/resources/languages.html If you don't like Python, Ruby, Perl, or Tcl, other bindings are available: https://wiki.tcl-lang.org/page/Languages+with+a+Tk+binding https://wiki.tcl-lang.org/page/Languages+with+a+Tk+binding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tk_%28software%29#Language_bindings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tk_%28software%29#Language_bin... While the stock look-and-feel is functional-but-bland on all platforms, modern Tk is completely customizable and can approximate native widgets: https://tkdocs.com/tutorial/windows.html#dialogs https://tkdocs.com/tutorial/windows.html#dialogs