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Re: SWT History and Design Decisions (WAS: [platform-swt-dev] AWT Toolkit using SWT (was: From Swing to SWT))
My posting wasn't directed to you - I knew you have a GUI builder - but to those who think that GUI builders are trivial applications. Since you charge for yours, I assume you understand it is non-trivial. ;-}
 
Thanks for the link. I will check it out. But since you have already told me what I wanted to know...
 
There are GUI builders that generate source code and those that don't (like yours). My feeling has always been that round-tripping is a *requirement* and if you want to generate source code then you open yourself up to having to round-trip from the source (or object) code. However, if you don't generate source code you are free to round-trip from whatever intermediate representation you have chosen. Either way satisfies the requirement. One of them (the source code path) is much harder than the other.
 
Your GUI builder generates "property resource files". So it is in the long and honorable tradition of GUI builders like NextStep, Apple's Project/Interface builder, even Visual Studio. Personally, I think this is a good approach.
 
What I don't understand is why you started this thread? There has to be some failing of either SWT or your descriptive techniques that leads you to think that adapting Conga to SWT would be hard. Specifically, what are they?
 
Bob
PS The word 'paradigm' tends to set me off. ;-}
 
Lane Sharman wrote:
Bob Foster wrote:
So where's your GUI builder? (Or Scott's, for that matter? ;-)
http://opendoors.com/conga
Download it for a free 30 trial. Also, be sure to read the link on the page and in the distro, "A Guide to Using Conga with a Team of Graphic Artists and Java Programmers". I believe Conga is completely production grade. Please be sure to drop me a note with any issues offline. Really looking forward to working with you.

 
I'm not seriously challenging that you could make one. I just want to look at the GUI builder that results.
 
The issue isn't whether you can make a GUI builder for SWT. You can make a GUI builder for any library...provided that you don't have to "round trip" (convert source/object code into the representation used internally by the GUI builder).
Conga does not generate/manage code. This is a failing of most GUI builders: they generate reams of code which statically describe at design time the UI. Conga's Builder manages property resource files. Code generation of a UI is basically an evil practice which should be avoided given the dynamic nature of a UI.

 
I know from previous discussion that Scott thinks this is not a requirement. I also know that many commercial GUI builders do allow round-tripping. Enough so that many would consider this a competitive requirement.
Further, in my own apps, I routinely rewrite the property resource files as easily as one would save a data file to preserve user interaction state with the UI. Kinda hard to rewrite and compile a a java source tree in a business app.

I am not trying to brag or anything. In fact, Arthur Van Hoff and his team deserves all the credit because this was his baby some time back and he is about an order of magnitude superior to me as a programmer. It is just that Conga reflects some really outstanding design features and, at this critical juncture in Java's story, we need some help on the desktop to compete with Visual Studio.

Kindest,

Lane

 
Bob
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, January 17, 2003 1:08 PM
Subject: RE: SWT History and Design Decisions (WAS: [platform-swt-dev] AWT Toolkit using SWT (was: From Swing to SWT))

It’s entirely possible… it’s just that some designers make API, or at least paradigm assumptions about the GUI library they design with, and sometimes those assumptions are incompatible with an alternate GUI library.  I’m not sure this is the case in the mentioned systems, but it’s the only real impediment.  Building a natively SWT-aware builder is not particularly hard compared with another GUI library.

Regards,

Christian.

-----Original Message-----
From: platform-swt-dev-admin@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:platform-swt-dev-admin@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jan Venema
Sent: Friday, January 17, 2003 10:49 PM
To: platform-swt-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: SWT History and Design Decisions (WAS: [platform-swt-dev] AWT Toolkit using SWT (was: From Swing to SWT))

Can sombody please explain to me why it is not possible to build a GUI designer in SWT.
I've been following the discussions here, but I haven't realy heard an answer. On the properties pattern thing. Does setData(String key, Object value)  solve your problem? And since SWT is native widgets How does Visual Studio do it?
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-- 
Lane Sharman
http://opendoors.com Conga, GoodTimes and Application Hosting Services
http://opendoors.com/lane.pdf BIO

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