fpGUI Toolkit v1.0 release for FPC 2.6.2

[itmitica]

By not being native fpGUI faults the user while trying to apply a cross-platform corporate symmetry.

Such statements always makes me laugh. Lets be realist, if the person that pays me to develop their app wants pink polka dots on their user interface, then they WILL get pink polka dots. Who are you, me, some OS or some open source project to dictate to the paying customer what he or she may or may not get.

I'm sorry, but I don't agree.
You, me, some OS and especially the paying customer, all have to account for the user.
So if the person wants polka dots, you, the developer, are to blame if he gets it, and then fails the user with it.

On a side note:
Web Apps - no native look (yet millions of Internet users have no problem with that) , Qt (most popular gui toolkit around) - not a native toolkit - all custom drawn, Microsoft Office (most popular office suite) - lots of custom components, Media Players - lots and lots of custom components, Mobile Devices - lots of non-native components and apps.

By native I don't mean the look, the colors.
By native I mean the ability to scale and fit and respect custom settings.
Web Apps are native to that concern.

People and companies want their products to stand out above the rest, that is why Microsoft makes Office, Visual Studio, IE etc look different to the rest of Windows. Same goes for Mac OS X. It's all about branding! LCL stifles this, and that is why I was asked to develop fpGUI (at least that was one of many reasons).

fpGUi functionality is far form being at that level: MS Office etc.
Just saying, let's be realistic.

Take a look at a fpGUI interface on a larger resolution with a larger DPI.

That depends on the app. Our commercial apps scale perfectly with DPI changes, but we added that functionality ourselves - it doesn't come as standard with fpGUI yet. Same applies to LCL. Lazarus IDE  (compiled for GTK2), among many other apps, don't scale well on my system either.

If there is missing functionality in fpGUI, available only commercially, than this announcement is not in its right place, is it?

Could you please provide a fpGUI binary to test that?

As it is, it doesn't scale well at all and it's not usable at all from my tests. I feel like Gulliver in Lilliput land, in a mono world, and I thought I should point this out. I was wrong?

Bottom line... if fpGUI doesn't suite your needs, simply don't use it.

My posts were only meant as honest assessment.
I acknowledge the effort, and I'm sorry if it came across as something else.

--
Mitică

[Dibo]

What about PaintBox?
Thanks!

I think you can just use base TfpgWidget and override HandlePaint or check if it has OnPaint event (don't remember, it can be in protected section)

[Graeme]

What about PaintBox?

You can add your own custom painting to any widget by overriding HandlePaint, or implementing a OnPaint event handler. If you want a dedicated component, simply create a TfpgWidget descendant.

[Graeme]

You, me, some OS and especially the paying customer, all have to account for the user.

The paying customer IS the user!

[Dibo]

By native I don't mean the look, the colors.
By native I mean the ability to scale and fit and respect custom settings.
Web Apps are native to that concern.

LCL are fine and I'm often using it in simple applications but I have doubts about scalling . I think that fpGUI is more scalable. Few reasons why I use fpGUI in some of my projects. LCL depend on OS widgets which has its pros and cons. Extending functionality is very problematic. For example close buttons on tab pages or custom font color on each tab. GTK has it, QT also but WinAPI don't and fpGUI has. TextHint in Edit controls? GTK has, QT has, WinAPI don't, fpGUI has. Want clear button in Edit? In fpGUI it's few code, in LCL It's not so easy, I tried did it maually, finally get it working on GTK but when run on Windows it works different than on GTK so I had to rewrite my code. When you write something in fpGUI you can be sure in 99% that it will feel and look same on all platforms because fpGUI has own render engine.
But sometimes I really need LCL, for example: Webkit or gecko controls. So my ideal solution is some kind of mixing fpGUI and LCL like LCL fpGUI. I know that suddenly my application will depend on all LCL external libs but user will be aware of this and this is his choice. So here is question to Graeme. Is it possible to create some mechanism which let you quicly merge updates from original fpGUI to LCL fpGUI? This would be awesome

[Fred vS]

What about PaintBox?

You can add your own custom painting to any widget by overriding HandlePaint, or implementing a OnPaint event handler. If you want a dedicated component, simply create a TfpgWidget descendant.

If there is a brave heart who can create ( and give the source ) of a TfpgPaintbox, (or a clear explanation how to do it, for dummy) im interested.

[Fred vS]

@  itmitica : I try to understand your point of view but there is something i do not catch. fpGUI allow you to change the look of the widget set. So you can use the native look if you want.

I do not know fpGUI at the moment, im a absolute beginner.
But it think it must be possible to code so the user, at setup of the program, can have the option to choose the look of the widget-set for example :

Look for widget-set:
- Native look
- Windows look
- Mac look
- etc..

And if you only want native look,you could use in your code:

Code: [Select]

{$IFDEF Darwin}or

Code: [Select]

{$IFDEF LCLQt}or

Code: [Select]

{$IFDEF Windows}
Also the famous hit :
Write once, compile everywhere is much more for fpGUI than for other widgetset.

So if the person wants polka dots, you, the developer, are to blame if he gets it, and then fails the user with it.

That, my friend, i TOTALLY NOT agree.

[itmitica]

So if the person wants polka dots, you, the developer, are to blame if he gets it, and then fails the user with it.

That, my friend, i TOTALLY NOT agree.

Like it or not, it's the truth. You, the developer, will get the full blame, when things go sideways.

The client may be asking something from you he doesn't quite grasps.
The same as with going to the dentist and making decisions you shouldn't.

Anyway, google for "educating your customers".

--
Mitică

[Graeme]

If there is a brave heart who can create ( and give the source ) of a TfpgPaintbox, (or a clear explanation how to do it, for dummy) im interested.

Like I said, drop a TfpgWidget on the form and implement the OnPaint event handler. You can use any of the Canvas methods to paint whatever you want. You can obviously create a TfpgPaintBox component too, but it will be exactly the same as TfpgWidget, so I don't see the need for that.

Anyway, attached is what you asked for.

[itmitica]

When you write something in fpGUI you can be sure in 99% that it will feel and look same on all platforms because fpGUI has own render engine.

I'd argue that this is not what they meant with "Write Once, Compile Anywhere".
And I'd argue that this gets fpGUI closer to an interpreted language, like Javascript.

--
Mitică

[Graeme]

The client maybe asking something from you he doesn't quite grasps.
...snip..
Anyway, google for "educating your customers".

Maybe you don't grasp the business world. Ever heard the saying: "The client is always right!". 

Obviously you can make suggestions, but ultimately it is the client that decides what he/she wants.

[Fred vS]

Anyway, google for "educating your customers".

I do not work like that. I prefer give choice to customer, explaining what is possible to do (or not), give my opinion and let the customer do his choice.

I never think a customer is stupid and if he want purple-green buttons with a cow-voice when he press on it, i will do it.
Of course is there is no risk of explosion of his new turbo-hypersonic LCD screen. 
 

[Fred vS]

You can use any of the Canvas methods to paint whatever you want.

Really ? Houlala, im very xited... 

[itmitica]

Maybe you don't grasp the business world.

It's quite possible.   

Anyway, so far I think I covered most of what I thought was relevant to share from my own fpGUI experience.
Once again, I appreciate the effort it took you to build fpGUI.

--
Mitică

[Fred vS]

1, 2, 3, OK, i dare. 

Does it exist a LCL2fpGUI converter, who convert my LCL code into fpGUI code. For example who converts all the tlabel into Tfpglabel label, etc...

I agree i ask too much but who knows...