Berikco, any word on the new Visual Designer ?

PB · Post by PB » Thu Sep 23, 2004 11:52 am

> PBDev takes several aspects into account which simply does require some
> overhead at first.

Fair enough. I was speaking as a newbie toying with it... my first impression.
Now that you've explained it better, it makes more sense. And I didn't say I
hated the app -- I'm actually extremely impressed with it (I used to be a VB
user). All the extra code shocked me, as I'm so used to coding apps without
so much code (such as EnableTaskHook etc). Will the app be updated to not
include such procedures if they're not used or needed? It'd be great to make
sources with what you're actually using, rather than what you might use...

Edwin Knoppert · Post by **Edwin Knoppert** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 12:19 pm

Good you took my reply that well, thanks.

I'll consider this as well.

Frankly i'm not that fond of 'gadgets' but rather would support plain window controls and create them with their stiles directly
(Answering the gadget remark earlier)

I'm currently busy updating the core project which does PwrDev, PBDev and VDIBA.
This includes:
1) multiselect and alignment
2) Propertybox much better behaving (like doubleclick set's next item from combolist etc.)
3) A common placeholder similar to 'usercontrol' which let's you insert a gadget name directly, so you can see a fake control which is the actual gadget on compile.
A single textbox should then be used to insert parameters.
This since PBDev does not support all controls and this would at least give you an option to integrate such controls.

4) The remark above about removing code... will check that out.
PwrDev has a special project dialog to let you add specific routines.
I could prepare such a thing for PBDev as well.
However, the calls you mention are mostly also used by the system.
Many of these procedures can then be used by you as programmer.
For example, why should i remove the setcolors function if PBDev code needs them anyway.
It's in fact reducing since PBDev code calls this function several times and not insert code to set colors over and over.
The only issue could be when no color is used whatsoever.
This is a diff. situation then.

Post by **Dare2** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 2:16 pm

Hi Edwin,

I have played with the demo a couple of times and reckon your designer could be near unbeatable. If ...

Your front end is great, and the ability to enter code associated with gadget events is terrific.

But when I looked at the code I thought whoa!. Interesting!. I had same thought as PB - now I have to convert this, dumb it down.

Things like:

Code: Select all

hWndc = TextGadget( 104, PBD_T2PX( 375 ), PBD_T2PY( 3675 ), PBD_T2PX( 3000 ), PBD_T2PY( 270 ), "Text here" )
If hWndc
  PBD_PrepCtrl( hWnd, hWndc, 104, -1, -1 )
EndIf

converting twips (or whatever they're called) seemed like overkill for:

Code: Select all

TextGadget(#num,x,y,w,h,"Text Here")

Plus all the other goodies - and they are good goodies, just seldom needed goodies.

Having read your posts here I can see where you're coming from.

Perhaps if you had an export code option as "PB-Standard" or "Windows Standard" (or, if you prefer, "simple" or "advanced") and created traditional PB code or your approach based on this option, you would widen your marketplace?

Which, all said and done, is what business is all about.

There are times when simple is good. And times when the more complex code created (which does seem closer to the windows approach) is good.

Just a thought.

Great front end (as the bishop said to the actress).

helpy · Post by **helpy** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 2:28 pm

Hi all,

PB-Editor source:

tinman wrote:
Dare2 wrote:Is that a special DL somewhere?
cvs.purebasic.com

I am not sure how up-to-date this cvs-Version is. In the About box of the newest PB-Editor it says "PureBasic 3.91". ... in the current sources of the cvs version it says "PureBasic 3.90".

And there are no tags used in the CVS repository. That means ... it is not possible to look back in older versions of the editor source. A tag was only used once (Stable-3-42). If Tags would be used more, it would be easier to look for bugs, because than it would be possible to make a report of the changes between two versions.

cu, helpy

PB · Post by PB » Thu Sep 23, 2004 2:29 pm

> when I looked at the code I thought whoa!. Interesting!. I had same
> thought as PB - now I have to convert this, dumb it down.

Phew... I'm glad to know it's not just me who was a bit shocked.

Edwin Knoppert · Post by **Edwin Knoppert** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 2:44 pm

The twips will remain but i agree how it's been used.
The coordinates will most likely be converted byref (*) and in one pass instead of 4.
I could think about a simple pixel version but that's not so recommended.
Doesn't matter to me as i see it, optional is optional..
Will check in the future if i can reduce it somewhat more.
Note that the code might look bloathed but like the select case, it's rather hard to make that simplier.
One case per line i mean.

I think you want it to small

LarsG · Post by **LarsG** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 6:48 pm

Paul:

I'm sorry if my post seemed negative towards your product. I wasn't my intention.
From what I've heard, PureVision is a very good product.

But still, if the code generated isn't compilable by others without the external library, it's not for me anyways...

Post by **Dare2** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 11:38 pm

helpy wrote:I am not sure how up-to-date this cvs-Version is.

Heya helpy,

The CVS shows last updated as recently as 2 months in some cases, so I guess it is pretty recent. There are a few things in the header comments that are out of date/synch but the code appears recent.

I built it (renamed all files and repositioned in work directory - didn't want to mess up PB).

It compiles fine and accepts code but (probably because I have it in a working directory and not within PB environment) it won't allow compilation yet. Will play some more a little down the track.

Hi Edwin,

Glad you're willing to look at creating simpler code. You'll have at least one new customer if you PB-ify it.

blueb · Post by **blueb** » Fri Sep 24, 2004 2:39 am

I'm not sure I understand everyone... I thought the goal of a program generator was to generate code that compiles what the programmer has designed.

What do I care if it's 13k instead of 10k bytes? As a program gets more items and does more work those extra few bytes will mean absolutely nothing.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for keeping code tight and managable, but I can't see someone refusing to take advantage of Edwin's program, because of a few bytes... am I alone here? :roll:

blueb

Post by **Dare2** » Fri Sep 24, 2004 4:05 am

blueb wrote:... am I alone here?

Heya blueb,

The extra k's are not really a problem to me. In fact PB and PBers go the other extreme from bloat - anorexic.

Personally, I would just like to see a more standardised code on output. Makes life easier when the designer is not the only development tool, which in my case it would not be.

In designer options we seem to have:

The official designer which is unfinished and unstable.

PureVision which is blooming good and which cuts stock code. (You don't need to use the libs). You can add stuff that PB does not support natively if you want to use the libraries and if you want you can write your own libs and replace the pv libs with a simple search and replace, or grep-ish util. The code is well organised and easy to mod.

Edwin's designer, which, IMO, has the greatest potential with the user interface but the code is very none standard. Harder to integrate.

(One thing Paul's PV and Edwin's designer could both use is the ability to have your home directory as a preference. If either does, I haven't spotted the option.)

Anyhow, I guess it depends on the individual's coding approach. I see a designer as a quick way to design a window. Coding behind the scenes is as important and comes, in my case, from JaPBe and some small utilities I have written. The more the designer does, the better (and again, Edwin offers the ability to attach code to gadgets, really a great feature) - but compatibility is an issue.

Edwin Knoppert · Post by **Edwin Knoppert** » Fri Sep 24, 2004 8:37 am

>Edwin's designer, which, IMO, has the greatest potential with the user interface but the code is very none standard. Harder to integrate

I had the same with PwrDev for PowerBASIC, people wanted to mix the output code into their editor instead.
This not the intention, you should use PBDev only.
Once you get the hang of it, you'll love it, espec. the single project file which makes backing up incredibly easy.
But it's possible it's simply not your designer (yet).

Post by **Dare2** » Fri Sep 24, 2004 12:40 pm

tinman · Post by **tinman** » Fri Sep 24, 2004 1:04 pm

helpy wrote:And there are no tags used in the CVS repository. That means ... it is not possible to look back in older versions of the editor source. A tag was only used once (Stable-3-42). If Tags would be used more, it would be easier to look for bugs, because than it would be possible to make a report of the changes between two versions.

I agree. That's something that needs to be slapped into those making the releases ;p

blueb · Post by **blueb** » Fri Sep 24, 2004 1:59 pm

Edwin Knoppert wrote:>Once you get the hang of it, you'll love it, espec. the single project file which makes backing up incredibly easy.

I especially like the 'Archive Project' menu item which saves the project code as a ZIP file. I do this every so often, when I want to try something new, but do not want to overwrite all my hard work.
e.g.
Arc1.zip
Arc2.zip

..works great.

--blueb

Post by **Berikco** » Sat Sep 25, 2004 3:51 pm

The current - unfinished - Visual Designer has event procedures for gadgets.
You can edit the generated code as much as you want, because the Visual Designer now uses just plain ASCII PureBasic source code to load and save the projects, no more binary file.

But..... a lot...lot...lot of work is needed before this can be released.

Here's a little preview http://www.purebasic.be/vd2.png