Re: [platform-swt-dev] Providing SWT themeable scrollbars (onWindows)

[Doug Schaefer <cdtdoug@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Feb 22, 2016 at 3:32 PM, Aleksandar Kurtakov <akurtako@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Fabio Zadrozny" <fabiofz@xxxxxxxxx>
> To: "Eclipse Platform SWT component developers list." <platform-swt-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Monday, 22 February, 2016 9:56:47 PM
> Subject: Re: [platform-swt-dev] Providing SWT themeable scrollbars    (onWindows)
>
> Hi Tom,
>
> I must say that while I think that a qt-based or javafx-based backend may be
> a good alternative, I don't think I personally have enough diplomatic skills
> to make that work (i.e.: I can't envision the default Eclipse being based on
> SWT from one of those backends -- and not because of technical issues -- it
> seems many which would be more suitable than me have tried and failed in the
> past, so, I'm not thrilled in trying to pursue that path).

I would dare to say it's purely technical issues. A new port need someone dedicated to make it work fully compatible with current SWT API once it does and it proves to be more stable, better performance, better looking - changing the default wouldn't be an issue. The issue is that while making a port that would be >90% or even >95% compatible that's where things start to get ugly and one starts finding out that the two things just don't play well for design issues (scrollbar color anyone?) and it's not fine to change the default in this case as there is always code in the wild that will break.

+1. We went through this exercise when JavaFX was the latest cool thing. There are a lot of places where you get into trouble with backwards compatibility. Hell, we had a hard enough time just fitting Eclipse into the JavaFX startup.

At the time, I concluded, the only way to make significant changes to SWT is to blow up the entire stack and start over. Imagine an Eclipse where there was no SWT, only JavaFX. It would be pretty sweat. How that ever happens is a thing of dreams. It turns out Eclipse is good enough as it is and no one is willing to make that investment over again. At least I haven't met them yet.

It's easy to think of code changes that add in little features that would make things a lot better. It's a harder thing to see those changes and realize how much worse things will become. There's lots of experience on this list. I'm sure we'll make the right decisions.

Doug.

 

Alexander Kurtakov
Red Hat Eclipse team

>

> What I'm interested in is finding a pragmatic way to improve on the current
> status quo with the tools I believe are available (which in this case is the
> current SWT implementation and the Windows UI API) and may be possible to
> accept as a pull request to improve on the current situation (without
> breaking the current behavior), as I think that has a higher chance of being
> accepted as effectively, nothing that is currently working should break if
> the themed scrollbar is not turned on.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Fabio
>
> On Mon, Feb 22, 2016 at 4:30 PM, Tom Schindl < tom.schindl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >
> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > Regarding the Tree/Table, I'm still studying a proper approach as I'm aware
> > that the one I had proposed won't work properly (if the worse comes to
> > worse, we'd need to do what modern UI frameworks do, reimplementing much
> > more and delegating less to the platform -- and yes, I'm aware that this
> > is a ton of work for SWT to catch up with modern UI frameworks, so, I'm
> > still studying to see if there's a better approach I can come up with...).
> >
>
> Revive the qt port instead of investigate in this
>
> Tom
>
>
> > ​Best Regards,
> >
> > Fabio​
> >
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