Hi Peter,
On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 12:59 AM, Peter Lavender <[email protected]> wrote:
> I too found the going painful and difficult with Wx perl, for the most part
> all the intros are just that. There doesn't appear to be a cook book of
> sorts out there, and you often end up stuck between knowing what you want to
> do, but not knowing HOW you do it.
Yeah. I am fortunate that I played a little with wxPython ans
C++/wxWidgets a year ago, so there is a lot that I don't have to
re-learn (e.g. sizers!).
> When I started on PerlTk there was a book out there that filled in a huge
> number of gaps, which made the task of learning a little easier and you felt
> more productive in a shorter time frame.
Slightly off-topic, but how would you compare PerlTk and wxPerl? Since
PerlTk is more documented and probably more stable (Tk being older)
what did wxPerl have that compelled you to switch?
> One option is to try out some of the GUI GUI builders out there, such as
> wxGlade, which will generate perl code for you ( not the best, but it's a
> start ).
I'm not a big fan of using GUI builders to learn. That said, I already
wrote my gui, so at this point I am looking *rewriting* my GUI with a
builder that generates an XRC fle. That way I can separate the GUI
from the program logic. Besides, I'll get to learn how to use XRC.
> There's also the wxFormBuilder applciation that creates an XML file fort the
> GUI.
Hmm. There seems to be a lot of choice. I have been playing with XRCed
(and I like it) and you've brought up wxGlade and wxFormBuilder. Which
is your favourite?
> Recently Adam Kennedy has been working on a tool to take that and make
> it "Padre friendly" such that rather than build GUI elements by manual
> coding, we do it in formbuilder and then have the module translate that to
> something more in line with 'correct' perl. I haven't used it much myself
> though so I could have some of that info incorrect.
I think I like the GUI in XML rather than Perl. Then again, I'm no expert.
> The best source of information for me though was the wxperl_demo.pl script.
> This has in the past shown me how to use a number of different widgets when
> I get stuck.
Thanks. I didn't know about that. Is it in the wxPerl distribution?
> However I will mention now that the C++ docs themselves are readable once
> you get the feel for how Wx Perl works, and in that, Padre recently saw the
> addition of the Wx Widgets documentation added to it's contextual help
> system.
I have been relying mainly on the C++ docs. After a little practice, I
can convert most things to wxPerl. Usually you convert wxFoo(...) to
Wx::Foo->new(...). An exception to that is MessageBox:
Wx::MessageBox("My Title","Some Message", wxOK, $self);
This doesn't follow the usual pattern.
> Now when ever I code and need a reference, it's just a matter of F2 and type
> in Wx:: and the class I'm after to get help.
...
> If you find yourself looking for an editor, Padre, with some of its rough
> edges is a reasonable choice, even more so now with the Wx Documentation
> available to the help system.
Interesting. That sounds great. I might give Padre a try.
> In the end, I figured that Wx is worthy of the learning curve, Mattia
> continues to support the community doing the crazy hard stuff, and projects
> like Padre ( and I think Kephra too ) prove that "big applciations" can be
> written in Perl and Wx.
So are wxPerl and Padre written by the same person? Let me give you a
brief story:
A year ago I wanted to experiment with wx and I first went to wxPerl.
But the website gave me the impression that the project was largely
unmaintained (e.g. most recent docs were many years old). That's why I
went to wxPython and C++/wx. It was only after I learned that Padre
uses wxPerl that I thought "maybe wxPerl is a little maintained after
all". And that's when I came here.
If wxPerl had recent documentation, I would not have needed Padre to
convince me to try it. I was sure that wxPerl was largely unmaintained
based on what I saw on the website.
--
Intolerant people should be shot.
