Re: [lazarus] Introduction - NOTE FOR GRAHAM
On 29/01/2008, A.J. Venter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Sorry for the late response, I am backreading a bit - but I thought you should know this is NOT needed. gtkproc unit has a call load_rc I think which you can call in your application to load a custom theme file in a sepperate location for the running app ONLY. Not ideal, but a work-around for gtk1 cases perhaps ? Thanks for the response AJ. The other factor that comes into play is that we had lots of IFDEF's in our old code when we used Delphi and Kylix. Moving over to Lazarus we had the intent of not needing IFDEF's again as we run on mixed platforms. The above is a possible solution, but not ideal. ;-) Regards, - Graeme - ___ fpGUI - a cross-platform Free Pascal GUI toolkit http://opensoft.homeip.net/fpgui/ _ To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe as the Subject archives at http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailarchives
Re: [lazarus] Introduction - NOTE FOR GRAHAM
Thanks for the response AJ. The other factor that comes into play is that we had lots of IFDEF's in our old code when we used Delphi and Kylix. Moving over to Lazarus we had the intent of not needing IFDEF's again as we run on mixed platforms. The above is a possible solution, but not ideal. ;-) Hiya Graham, Well I wasn't actually saying it would be the answer for you right now - but I wanted to fix the misconception - it is possible to use a custom theme for just your program, ship it with it etc. In fact in some earlier versions of direqcafe I did that. Nowadays I use gtk2 for it and that nowadays already has the features I need. As for the whole 'native-look' debate: One thing keeps coming up in usability studies - every app on the user's desktop should behave the same to the largest possible extent. So the user does not need to learn how to navigate 20 types of file open dialogs. More and more even disparate systems like Linux is pursuing this - a kde distro will ship as few gnome apps as it can get away with - so the apps will behave the same - ditto for a gnome one. Now lazarus here offers the ability to create multi-platform apps that NEVERTHELESS blend into the desktop the user is using - that is a good thing in 99% of the cases. In fact the ONLY use case where it breaks down is the mixed environment - where people use the same app on many systems in the same place as a major app. There consistency for the app across environments becomes a higher priority. This use-case remains however by far the minority one. This is YOUR use-case though, and at least one other person here has the same one. So for you - the current lazarus falls short. For the rest of us - it's doing exactly what OUR users actually DEMAND. But, FPgui is well on it's way to fully supporting your use-case - and once it's LCL linked, lazarus will be able to meet either use-case. My time is rather limited, but (although I don't need it myself) I would like to help make this happen - so that lazarus can have yet another major capability - native-look or app-consistent becomes a choice of the developer based on the needs of HIS user-base. Can you mail me offlist with some of the priority missing pieces ? Then if I have time, I can send you back some patches to help it along. Ciao A.J. -- Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic - Clarke's law Any technology that is distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -Gehm's corollary Any technologist that is distinguishable from a magician is insufficiently advanced - My corollary The worlds worst webcomic: http://silentcoder.co.za/scartoonz The worlds best cybercafe manager: http://outkafe.outkastsolutions.co.za begin:vcard fn:AJ Venter n:Venter;AJ org:Global Pact Trading Pty. Ltd.;OutKast Solutions email;internet:[EMAIL PROTECTED] title:Director of Product Development tel;work:+27 21 554 5059 tel;fax:+27 11 252 9197 tel;cell:+27 83 455 9978 url:http://www.outkastsolutions.co.za version:2.1 end:vcard
Re: [lazarus] Introduction - NOTE FOR GRAHAM
I remember I was told to use a custom theme file, but that would change it for all application, and I needed to change colors based on data entered in forms (validation things), so that solution was totally useless. Sorry for the late response, I am backreading a bit - but I thought you should know this is NOT needed. gtkproc unit has a call load_rc I think which you can call in your application to load a custom theme file in a sepperate location for the running app ONLY. Not ideal, but a work-around for gtk1 cases perhaps ? A.J. -- Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic - Clarke's law Any technology that is distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -Gehm's corollary Any technologist that is distinguishable from a magician is insufficiently advanced - My corollary The worlds worst webcomic: http://silentcoder.co.za/scartoonz The worlds best cybercafe manager: http://outkafe.outkastsolutions.co.za begin:vcard fn:AJ Venter n:Venter;AJ org:Global Pact Trading Pty. Ltd.;OutKast Solutions email;internet:[EMAIL PROTECTED] title:Director of Product Development tel;work:+27 21 554 5059 tel;fax:+27 11 252 9197 tel;cell:+27 83 455 9978 url:http://www.outkastsolutions.co.za version:2.1 end:vcard
Re: [lazarus] Introduction - NOTE FOR GRAHAM
On 29/01/2008, A.J. Venter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Well I wasn't actually saying it would be the answer for you right now - but I wanted to fix the misconception - it is possible to use a custom theme for just your program, ship it with it etc. I understand that you can ship a custom theme (rc file or whatever) for GTK with your application. Somebody else told me that before. But I needed more flexibility by changing the appearance of a _single_ component on-demand (eg: TEdit's background to clError [yellow] when there was a validation issue). All this is water under the bridge for me now - we are already 2.5 years into development. Why to late to change GUI toolkits again. It would be nice if what you said was documented on the Lazarus wiki though (if it's not already there). It might be handy for other users. One thing keeps coming up in usability studies - every app on the user's desktop should behave the same to the largest possible extent. So the user does not need to learn how to navigate 20 types of file open fpGUI's designs like the File Open dialog are based on Windows look, so any user should be able to use it. The Font dialog (not used much in general apps) have a slightly different look, but that's because it has some unique features. Still very simple to use. Oh, fpGUI's Buttons work similar to Windows to point and click. ;-) But, FPgui is well on it's way to fully supporting your use-case - and once it's LCL linked, lazarus will be able to meet either use-case. That is what I am hoping for and why I'll justify spending time working on the LCL-fpGUI integration. Can you mail me offlist with some of the priority missing pieces ? Then if I have time, I can send you back some patches to help it along. Thanks AJ, I'll send you a mail... Regards, - Graeme - ___ fpGUI - a cross-platform Free Pascal GUI toolkit http://opensoft.homeip.net/fpgui/ _ To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe as the Subject archives at http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailarchives
Re: [lazarus] Introduction - NOTE FOR GRAHAM
Open Office will have all sorts of users, many of them are individuals with different tastes. They have favorite OS, theme, etc. Some of them are old, some have disabilities. It's a vastly heterogeneous population with very different needs. Each user has his own Desktop Environment and the software needs to appear right in each and every computer. The look and feel may influence the buying decision. On the other hand, SAP R/3 is an ERP used by companies. The company does not want to waste time and money training people for different widget sets. They want a single, consistent look across the entire company, it's an homogeneous userbase. Even if there are many OSes, the ERP must look exactly the same everywhere. The company may even need an odd widget like this one (from FLTK): http://www.fltk.org/documentation.php/doc-1.1/Fl_Dial.html That's my point. Different types of users, different needs. A software with a diverse userbase, like Open Office, needs to comply to every standard possible -- even if this costs a few features. A software with a specific user base, specially an enterprise core application, needs to implement every feature the user wants, even if this costs a few standards. 2008/1/29, Marco van de Voort [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Tue, Jan 29, 2008 at 09:50:11AM -0300, Alexsander Rosa wrote: OpenOffice needs to blend in the user's interface. SAP R/3 does not. Why not? They might get a way with it, but is it a hard requirement that SAP does not blend in? Different users, different needs. _IS_ it a need? Or something convenient for the programmers they cna get away with ? _ To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe as the Subject archives at http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailarchives -- Atenciosamente, Alexsander da Rosa Linux User #113925
Re: [lazarus] Introduction - NOTE FOR GRAHAM
On Tue, Jan 29, 2008 at 02:35:56PM +0200, Graeme Geldenhuys wrote: It's more than look and basic behaviour: - keyboard handling - disability support - internationalisation support - behaviour when scaling - following future extensions a bit. (See e.g. the site how to update Delphi apps to vista look. A overrides pertaining font changes here and there, a property there, and done. Try that with a widget set that paints itself) I'm not trying to recreate every possible OS to the tee, but I am trying to implement enough so users will feel comfortable and not alienated. Take Pixel (the image editor) as an example - It looks like Windows XP default theme, but at closer inspection it's not (file dialogs are very different, no keyboard focus support, no mouse over/down states on buttons and scrollbars etc..) but it seems to be enough to fool the average user and make them feel okay with the application. For me it is simple. Despite that I'm multiplatform oriented, I can't wipeout that Windows is still dominant. Anything substandard on Windows is thus IMHO a dead horse except in certain niches. When trying to improve the behaviour when totally gets into the swamp of details, differences of approach, customizability etc. And with dead horse I mean the technique (the widget set), not necessarily the application (like Pixel), since that can have additional features going for it that make up for it. So unless I have a very strong reason I'll go for the native set. I'm trying the same with fpGUI - getting them to feel comfortable, even though some things might be a bit different. fpGUI's goal is consistency across platforms with the addition that anything can be customized if the developer needs it. And whatever I missed and somebody else needs - hopefully it will be fairly straight forward to implement. That is indeed a different vision. So you are more targeting the same user working on multiple platforms, then delivering an app to multiple users on different platforms. As for bleeding edge looks like Vista - 99% of ours clients use Win98 and WinXP (and yes I know I shouldn't generalize only on our experience). Only now (the beginning of this year) we finally stopped supporting Win95! People don't upgrade nearly as quick as Microsoft wishes! There is a lot of old hardware still being used with Win98. Yes I know. I've been in the same position. But those machines were dedicated to that hardware, and no new stuff was bought for that market. So we gave up on pre 2000. (in my last job) In my current job, we deliver a complete or partial machine that happens to contain a PC installed with XP. So the situation here is totally different (and licensing costs are negiable compared to even one bit of the non PC hardware) _ To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe as the Subject archives at http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailarchives
Re: [lazarus] Introduction - NOTE FOR GRAHAM
OpenOffice needs to blend in the user's interface. SAP R/3 does not. Different users, different needs. 2008/1/29, Marco van de Voort [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Tue, Jan 29, 2008 at 12:04:11PM +0200, Graeme Geldenhuys wrote: It would be nice if what you said was documented on the Lazarus wiki though (if it's not already there). It might be handy for other users. Agree. It was a nice post. One thing keeps coming up in usability studies - every app on the user's desktop should behave the same to the largest possible extent. So the user does not need to learn how to navigate 20 types of file open fpGUI's designs like the File Open dialog are based on Windows look, so any user should be able to use it. The Font dialog (not used much in general apps) have a slightly different look, but that's because it has some unique features. Still very simple to use. Oh, fpGUI's Buttons work similar to Windows to point and click. ;-) It's more than look and basic behaviour: - keyboard handling - disability support - internationalisation support - behaviour when scaling - following future extensions a bit. (See e.g. the site how to update Delphi apps to vista look. A overrides pertaining font changes here and there, a property there, and done. Try that with a widget set that paints itself) etc etc _ To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe as the Subject archives at http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailarchives -- Atenciosamente, Alexsander da Rosa Linux User #113925
Re: [lazarus] Introduction - NOTE FOR GRAHAM
On Tue, Jan 29, 2008 at 12:04:11PM +0200, Graeme Geldenhuys wrote: It would be nice if what you said was documented on the Lazarus wiki though (if it's not already there). It might be handy for other users. Agree. It was a nice post. One thing keeps coming up in usability studies - every app on the user's desktop should behave the same to the largest possible extent. So the user does not need to learn how to navigate 20 types of file open fpGUI's designs like the File Open dialog are based on Windows look, so any user should be able to use it. The Font dialog (not used much in general apps) have a slightly different look, but that's because it has some unique features. Still very simple to use. Oh, fpGUI's Buttons work similar to Windows to point and click. ;-) It's more than look and basic behaviour: - keyboard handling - disability support - internationalisation support - behaviour when scaling - following future extensions a bit. (See e.g. the site how to update Delphi apps to vista look. A overrides pertaining font changes here and there, a property there, and done. Try that with a widget set that paints itself) etc etc _ To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe as the Subject archives at http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailarchives
Re: [lazarus] Introduction - NOTE FOR GRAHAM
On 29/01/2008, Marco van de Voort [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It's more than look and basic behaviour: - keyboard handling - disability support - internationalisation support - behaviour when scaling - following future extensions a bit. (See e.g. the site how to update Delphi apps to vista look. A overrides pertaining font changes here and there, a property there, and done. Try that with a widget set that paints itself) I'm not trying to recreate every possible OS to the tee, but I am trying to implement enough so users will feel comfortable and not alienated. Take Pixel (the image editor) as an example - It looks like Windows XP default theme, but at closer inspection it's not (file dialogs are very different, no keyboard focus support, no mouse over/down states on buttons and scrollbars etc..) but it seems to be enough to fool the average user and make them feel okay with the application. I'm trying the same with fpGUI - getting them to feel comfortable, even though some things might be a bit different. fpGUI's goal is consistency across platforms with the addition that anything can be customized if the developer needs it. And whatever I missed and somebody else needs - hopefully it will be fairly straight forward to implement. As for bleeding edge looks like Vista - 99% of ours clients use Win98 and WinXP (and yes I know I shouldn't generalize only on our experience). Only now (the beginning of this year) we finally stopped supporting Win95! People don't upgrade nearly as quick as Microsoft wishes! There is a lot of old hardware still being used with Win98. Also, I am working on fpGUI's theme engine and theme designer, but it's not priority yet. In the end graphics artists will be able to create themes with easy, freeing up the developers to do what they do best - code! Regards, - Graeme - ___ fpGUI - a cross-platform Free Pascal GUI toolkit http://opensoft.homeip.net/fpgui/ _ To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe as the Subject archives at http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailarchives
Re: [lazarus] Introduction - NOTE FOR GRAHAM
Graeme Geldenhuys rašė: On 29/01/2008, A.J. Venter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Well I wasn't actually saying it would be the answer for you right now - but I wanted to fix the misconception - it is possible to use a custom theme for just your program, ship it with it etc. I understand that you can ship a custom theme (rc file or whatever) for GTK with your application. Somebody else told me that before. But I needed more flexibility by changing the appearance of a _single_ component on-demand (eg: TEdit's background to clError [yellow] when there was a validation issue). All this is water under the bridge for me now - we are already 2.5 years into development. Why to late to change GUI toolkits again. I implemented this in another way: when i need to show where user entered invalid data (f.e. TEdit) i simply draw animated frame around that control (for this i writted component error shower: at startup they collect all TControl's with error showing feature, and at runtime i tell for him where need error to show). P.S. sorry for bad English. -- Valdas Jankūnas _ To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe as the Subject archives at http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailarchives
Re: [lazarus] Introduction - NOTE FOR GRAHAM
On Tue, Jan 29, 2008 at 09:50:11AM -0300, Alexsander Rosa wrote: OpenOffice needs to blend in the user's interface. SAP R/3 does not. Why not? They might get a way with it, but is it a hard requirement that SAP does not blend in? Different users, different needs. _IS_ it a need? Or something convenient for the programmers they cna get away with ? _ To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe as the Subject archives at http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailarchives
