Custom Drawn Controls advances

[Blestan]

let's continue this talk on your forum
i just subscribed ... i have an idea i i will be happy to share with you ...

[mse]

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[Graeme]

now it's time to escape from the shadow of delphi and work on gui that si simple to use across platforms

And with that, you will not convince the core Lazarus team. They live and breath Delphi. They only wish to be a clone. Unfortunately it seems FPC wants to do the same.

it's crutial to avoid any deps on external libs and widgetsets  and  frocus to implement a powerful drawing backend using the best approach on paticular  platform ( OpenGL, DirectX, AggPas, etc etc) then on top of it to build a clear and  simple gui with a designer

fpGUI checks all those boxes already. fpGUI already has an AggPas backend - simply compile the framework with 'AggCanvas' compiler define enabled. After the next release I'll start paying more attention to this backend, and probably make it the default backend - instead of X11 or GDI.

But once again lazarus must be the fundation of all this process

As Martin keeps asking..why? LCL is buggy, that is why I moved away from it. fpGUI already does everything you described as requirements... MSEgui probably too. So why must we leave your years of work and start from scratch. No chance. The best you will get from me is LCL-fpGUI, but that is not a high priority for me, so I only occasionally supply patches.


Anyway, to get back to the actual message thread. I got an update from Lazarus Trunk to test LCL-CustomDrawn. My most basic application using LCL-CustomDrawn couldn't even run. I had to hack some LCL widgetset code (color palette code) to get it to just run. Most basic components don't work. No popup menus in edit box, cursor blinking inconsistent (then in blinks damn fast, then in stops blinking for 10 seconds etc). PageControl and Tabsheets are totally useless. Tabs don't scroll, content in tabsheets appear over tabs. only the first tabsheet's controls appear, even if I click on other tabs. etc. So hence my earlier statement... LCL-CustomDrawn is still in Alpha state, and years away from being usable. I'm sure Felipe would welcome any contributes in this regard.

[Blestan]

@Graeme: I agree with you but do you plan to target mobile  platforms?

[Graeme]

Exactly, I support strongly the idea of own drawn controls and can't wait for new fpGUI release with Agg. This is the future..

Thanks Dibo. As for your list of issues... as you guessed, I am already working on all of them. fpGUI with AppPas backend doesn't painting on all supported platforms very well in general. Still one or two minor issues to fix, and then the font name resolution (translating fpGUI style font descriptions to font file names).

[Graeme]

BTW: What is tiopf in fpgui? Why it is related to fpGUI?

There shouldn't be any tiOPF code in fpGUI any more.  I use and maintain tiOPF (Object Persistente Framework) for all my commercial [and lots of personal] work - it manages my Business Object mapping to Database Servers. Years ago I implemented the Model-GUI-Mediator (MGM) design pattern - something very similar to Model-View-Controller or Model-View-Presenter. MGM allows any standard widget to become "object aware" - thus I don't need DB-aware copies of all my widgets. My MGM implementation in tiOPF supports Delphi VCL, Lazarus LCL and fpGUI - called mediators. For a while I kept the tiOPF fpGUI mediators in the fpGUI repository, but since moved all mediator code into the tiOPF repository. Having them inside the tiOPF repository makes more sense.

[Dibo]

Thanks Graeme for explanation. Could you say how much work left to do to the next release? Do you have any date for release?

[Graeme]

any plans when mse or fpgui will target mobile?

Currently I limit fpGUI to desktop and embedded systems (WinCE, Linux-ARM like Raspberry Pi, handheld scanners etc). I welcome contributions in that direction though. But like Martin, I think for mobile phones and tables, it is better to use the native design tools and frameworks. Cross-platform frameworks never work very well on such mobile devices.

[Graeme]

Could you say how much work left to do to the next release? Do you have any date for release?

I  should have released in January, but keep finding more things I want to add first.    I really should just push out a release and if needed push out more in 2-3 months time. Once a year is too long to wait. Alternatively, I recommend developers simply use the code repository directly. I use fpGUI in my commercial work, so I try to keep it always in a stable and buildable state.

[Dibo]

I think for mobile phones and tables, it is better to use the native design tools and frameworks

Exactly. That's why I learned java and eclipse to write native applications for Android. Never tried, but seems that FPC JVM could be a good alternative. It can use native android API and interface with pascal syntax

[mse]

Here an image in order to show some of the possibilities MSEgui provides out of the box.

[Dibo]

Alternatively, I recommend developers simply use the code repository directly

I will do when it include fixes for transparency . Two questions:
1. What is a stage of miglayout? I saw some commits in git log, but can't find any demo in examples
2. Do you using Agg render in your comercial products also? Can it draw on X11 and GDI (32 and 64 bit)?

[Dibo]

Here an image in order to show some of the possibilities MSEgui provides out of the box.

Is there documentation for controls styling? I'm trying to open facedemo, can compile but source editor doesn't show any files, it's empty

[mse]

Please ask MSEgui issues on the MSEgui mailing list, links are above.
http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/topic,15209.msg117974.html#msg117974
In order to edit the form: 'File'-'Open', select "main.pas".

[Graeme]

1. What is a stage of miglayout? I saw some commits in git log, but can't find any demo in examples

No demos yet. I'm still working on implementing the layout engine. Once done, it should work and behave exactly like the Java counterpart. For now you can take a look at the Java demos to see how it will work.

2. Do you using Agg render in your comercial products also? Can it draw on X11 and GDI (32 and 64 bit)?

We do some graphics rendering on a specialised canvas - using the AppPas API directly. I haven't switch any of our products to using only the fpGUI AggPas backend - though I have done many tests by enabling it. Except for font handling, everything works like it did before (mostly at least). Once completed, and if I did my job correctly, all existing fpGUI apps should continue to work as normal, just with better graphics support, anti-aliased drawing, alpha support in images etc. DocView, fpGUI UI Designer, Sprite Demo etc all work as expected - bar the font handling.