Hi Lazarus team,
The reasoning of that fork is easy to accomplish as vision as was the Beryl
one. Compiz wants more stability, Beryl wants more eye-candy. Compiz wants
firstly to get a strong base, beryl wants to get full-featured product over the
to-date compiz version.
That solution is the today solution for two visions of the same problem: what
means Lazarus to became easy and more accepted. For a short term, for sure
Lazarus can be as Delphi 7 like as it wants.
Delphi is great tool, was and is really a great tool. So taking his UI as
template is great. It does it's job, many Lazarus users are Delphi users. So no
one will want to try something different and purposely better.
I want to put in the history of some software products that were changed a lot
and taking no copy-like solutions and prevails:
-GNOME 2 instead GNOME 1 (which focus to simplify the UI as it's minimal
features that the user wants) and became a great success
- Mono, by adding near the default .NET implementation it's OWN stack which is
not compatible with .NET but is more compatible with GNOME
- Eclipse RCP (Rich Client Platform) which increase greatly over the +.1
versions mostly in look
- Firefox and Thunderbird against Mozilla Browser Suite
What are the best copy-like projects that succeed but they does not replace the
commercial product:
- Wine: is a minimalist Windows like system, but for critical systems, all use
Windows
- Mono: when is for performance, the Windows' .NET stack is used
- DosBox: great, but most users preffer a VM with DOS instead that solution on
top of FreeDOS
They both fight for the same world and give the same solution as the commercial
component: they offer a similar look&feel with the originator software. Is good
when you want to use that soft on other platform, and 70% compatibility is
acceptable. The replacements with a compatible core (Firefox for instance on
top of Gecko) but an easier UI that don't stop only on copy-ing let's say Opera
browser (by adding tabls) and all browsers in the market (to have all options
for the user), and purposing for the users that wants a way back extensions to
make it somehow at the same level, but still lighter than Mozilla, makes it
succeed.
What is the Lazarus approach today?
I am not here to judge but Lazarus may succeed as a copy-like product, but will
be always weaker than Delphi 2007 or 2008 when it will appear. At least on
Win32 platform. When anyone will say a platform critical product, will use
Delphi.
What is the hope of "revamping" lazarus: to make a "free-mind" introspections
about Lazarus UI, but not in the idea that makes it more Delphi like, excluding
the case when the Delphi's solution is really the best in the market,
elsewhere, there is no need to waste time in that direction. By that the
focuses are:
- use when is possible a wizard that makes all your steps: file>new>other...,
project->new,
- all preferences in Lazarus should be in the same way viewed, probably similar
with Object Inspector, may be boring for some, but a new user will know: I must
go to the page X, look for property Y, and put value Z
- implement globally search (to filter the options, wizards to start,
source-code, properties to setup)
- reduce the UI-wise items to minimum, with all drawback
- implement hint tools and other hidden options (Create Class wizard will be an
unit with a class name inside it) to be live active, possible as a live-toolbar
- revamp graphics and colors, make a theme of Lazarus, similar with Clearlooks
on GNOME, but will apply only on top of Lazarus IDE, so anyone will see Lazarus
will identify as it
- remove completly and try to make them as separate modules some Lazarus
options: Build Lazarus should be a wizard, but will be put as an external tool,
and you have to activate it, Import Delphi form, etc. will be an option in Open
dialog, or an extra option on File->New->Other dialog, to import things in it
- remove annoying user-like errors (for the moment is considered to create a
notification area window instead showMessage dialog)
- create a startup wizard, for the new user, with one of the first links: one
to a freepascal tutorial (in Lazarus' wiki!?) and a Lazarus tutorial
What will not make that fork:
- change LCL in the idea of making more friendly for that new UI, all bug
reports will be submited back to Lazarus project
- hide bugs found in Lazarus as much it expects to share as much code as
possible for short to medium term of time(Lightzarus project, with the splash
writing FreePascal Lazarus Light)
What are the long term benefits:
- will hopefully became the newbie version of Lazarus
- will offer a mini-framework on top of LCL, so it will remove a lot of
"hand-made" designed code
- it will not have to be a 100% compliant rule UI as much as wants to be more
proffesionist, so it will get best benefits as is more redesigned (for sure not
all solutions will be optimum, but will be good enough to take for granted)
So Lightzarus is Lazarus with redesigned UI at the start, and in the long way a
simplified UI that hopefully will solve most problems as new user expect.
The top of reason of forking is: Lazarus itself as IDE, has *not* that goals,
and wanting to achieve that plans in Lazarus development today has no sense, so
instead arguing and fight for every new extra change, is easier to redesign
places where is considered more to be in that way, and at the end, hopefully it
succeed. As firefox, not as wine.
Best in all,
Ciprian
Lee Jenkins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Ciprian Mustiata wrote:
> The issue I want to put on top is Lazarus resemble with 10 years old
> UIs, FreePascal the same, and they don't want to add value for the
> product is today most needed. I've not means about Lazarus bugs, all
> software has bugs.
> So, the eexpectations for a new user, (I put me in that use-case) is to
> get for first time a wizard to understand what to do with Lazarus,
> secondly the UI should be innovative, probably the best in market, to
> be consistent UI-wise, to give me tools and as much I've don't need to
> be hidden, by my choose or choosing a profile.
That's asking a lot, IMO. These are all volunteers working here and they've
done a pretty smashing job, if you ask me. I know lazarus takes a bit to get
familiar with, but it really is a very nice IDE, IMO. Sure, its no Delphi2007,
but I would guess that if the core developers had 10% of the money for R&D that
CodeGear has (.00005% for M$ ;)), Lazarus would be a lot more "moochy" as I
like
to say.
Are there things that I'd like to see in Lazarus such as a c# style
autocompletion?, sure I would. But I don't have the time to contribute things
like that myself so I am perfectly fine enjoying Lazarus as is. To me, Lazarus
provides something very important: value. With only slight inconveniences from
Delphi, etc, Lazarus provides a pretty damn productive environment for building
true cross platform applications and the support community is excellent.
To me what is most promising is that among component/framework vendors for
Delphi, there seems to be more and more providing support for
freepascal/lazarus. To me, that indicates a good solid compatibility with
Delphi and a maturity in the Lazarus product itself.
> Identity of Lazarus will make people to not think in Lazarus as the
> worse twin of Delphi. Lazarus has to be best in what it does: it must be
> simple to add a component, or to write a dll, it MUST provide a simple
> Wizard, even seems a foolish from many view, that will make to be used
> in schools, it must have less annoying bugs, that should be the
> BLOCKERS, not one bug in one toolkit. Lazarus have to implement it's own
> dialogs using not TForm with strict UI rules, they have to implement all
> dialogs from a TIDEForm, so managing the docking, etc. in future by that
> inheritance.
I agree that it would be nice to see lazarus as an IDE comparable to
Delphi/VS.net, but it really does do most of the stuff those IDE's do, IMO. A
C# style autocompletion option for always be nice since I'm a lazy coder ;)
> Based on that issues, and some more, me and that designer will not look
> back to Delphi legacy, excluding the LCL and we will try to manage to
> make a fork of Lazarus. The role of that fork is very easy: it will must
> provide bet UI for user, and will not take care about users that say:
> "in Delphi is different", because Lazarus is not Delphi, is much better.
> That fork will be maintained to an external server, like OpenSVN one and
> hopefully when will get enough substange to get it's own merit as an
> upgrade to Lazarus, hopefully will be merged back to Lazarus code.
>
I don't know. I agree with other responder in that the time would be better
spent on lazarus proper. The project can always use more talented contributors
and you wouldn't have to fork the code.
--
Warm Regards,
Lee
"My wife is better at Guitar Hero than I am and it's really irritating."
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