Hi Hugh, let me answer your questions.
Hugh Gibson wrote: > I would be interested to know what will be the transition from 0.8 to > version 1.0. There is undoubtedly some resistance to using qooxdoo > because it has still not got its first release. It's only when you dig > deeper that you realise that it's very usable right now, capable of > producing large applications. > > In reality, version 0.6 could have been termed version 1.0, 0.7 could > have been 2.0 (new classes etc) and 0.8 could be version 3.0. That qooxdoo is in such a mature state already is certainly something to be happy with. :-) I doubt that 0.6 and 0.7 (while being solid, truly "major" releases) would have qualified for qooxdoo 1.0, though. Of course, there is some magic behind a "1.0" release, but we are too honest to say qooxdoo is there yet. The exciting progress towards 0.8 will seriously ;-) revolutionize the GUI capabilities of qooxdoo, but introduce changes that - including API stabilization - will hopefully lead to 1.0 not to far after 0.8. There may be a few people that show "some resistance to using qooxdoo because it has still not got its first release". But seriously, a software product shouldn't be rated only by its version number, right? I believe more people would have criticized qooxdoo for making massive changes after an early 1.0. Anyway, since there is no qooxdoo 1.0 yet, there won't be one before an 0.8... > Also, with the new layout stuff what assistance will there be for > designing layouts? Whenever I have to write code for a new dialog I seem > to fight for ages with widths, borders, margins etc. Maybe that's just > the old layout engine (I always seem to get errors about different > combinations of widths which aren't supported) but there's no doubt that > a layout designer would be fantastic for getting an initial hierarchy of > controls created and make it much easier and faster to use qooxdoo. While many of the fundamental idea of widgets, layout managers and programming model are not going to change, 0.8 will introduce API changes to overcome some technical and some usability/ambiguity issues of prior versions. The API is to become much more intuitive and less error-prone to the developer. ;-) Talking of GUI designers, I think any advanced GUI toolkit will always get added visual layout applications at some point. qooxdoo should be no exception. There has been some first, quite impressive implementations, see Leander's "Weida" GUI designer (qooxdoo-contrib/Weida) or (while being more of a debugging tool) Martin's Inspector (qooxdoo-contrib/Inspector). For sure, there will be one or many really cool GUI designers for qooxdoo, but probably not at the time of 0.8. > That would be a big plus when comparing qooxdoo with other packages - > probably more so than the availability of a native text editor which is > always going to play catchup with the market leaders like FCK editor. Not only do visual design tools already exist, there is also a basic, but promising cross-browser HTML editing component (qooxdoo-contrib/HtmlArea). As I said, all projects mentioned need (or currently get) some more polishing to be ready for prime time. Cheers, Andreas -- Andreas Ecker Project Lead http://qooxdoo.org ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse0120000070mrt/direct/01/ _______________________________________________ qooxdoo-devel mailing list qooxdoo-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/qooxdoo-devel
