[Lazarus] fpGUI

[Marcos Douglas]

On Sun, Jan 16, 2011 at 3:50 PM, Graeme Geldenhuys
<graemeg.lists at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 2011-01-16 at 16:33 +0100, Marco van de Voort wrote:
>> Anyway, one can indeed use pseudo directives for this. But the parser still
>> needs to be hardened against accidental edits.
>
> Why must I harden the UI Designer's parser. The UI Designer generates
> source code and reads ui source code - it's been good enough for the
> last 2-3 years. If there was accidental edits or invalid object pascal
> code, the FPC compiler will detect that. As I said, the UI setup code is
> rather basic - not nearly as complex as other business object rules etc.
> I've created quite complex UI's in our products over the last 2-3 years
> and the fpGUI UI Designer coped just fine with it.

I would like to see some UI, if possible  =)


>> Moreover, I still fail to see the advantage at all.
>
> Read your emails :) There are pros and cons for both options, I get
> that. I simply find the pros more to my style of working.
>
> * UI is in private section of a form class by default. A rather basic
>  OOP principle - only make public what you need public.
> * I can search and replace properties or components very easily.
>  eg: Lazarus and MSEide default to searching *.pp and *.pas files -
>  which is where my UI code lives.
> * I can tweak a property value without having to switch to a UI Designer
> * Lazarus IDE codefolds the AfterCreate method by default, so as not to
>  obfuscate my hand-written code. Thanks to whoever implemented regions.
> * I have less files to manage in a project or a VCS.
> * Tracking the history in a VCS is much simple. Code and UI in one unit.
> * All related code is in the related unit - not split over multiple
>  files. This goes hand-in-hand with the previous point.
> * I can use code templates to quickly generate parts of my UI that
>  normally have a consistent layout. This is great for quick demos etc.
>  It like having code templates in the visual designer (I think Delphi
>  actually had such a feature)
> * Multiple forms in a single unit.
> * I'm able to use new or "unknown to the ui designer" components. No
>  extra install required [which could lead to a bugy UI designer].
>  Seeing that I have created so many gui components already, this is
>  very handy while developing those components.
> * A guaranteed creation order of components
>
> ...for more see my previous messages, I can't remember everything now.

Sounds very good for me. I always wanted widgets private, e.g.

Marcos Douglas