[Gnumed-devel] Comment on wxPthyon GUI Stuff

[richard terry]

To clarify my vocal comments about wxPython:

As as gui designer used to the easy VB environment the issues for me about 
wxPython have been as follows:

1)Lack of good IDE design tool. 

-Boa, sure, is maturing, but still way away from being comparable to even the 
simplest mature IDE tool.  Other tools such as wxDesigner and wxGlade don't 
give the flexibility that Boa promises, or that IDE's such as VB/Delphi/QT 
have.

The net result is that if one wants to spend a few hours mucking around with 
permutations of a gui design it is slow, irritating, frustrating and clunky. 

In practice I found it was easier to get into the code and design from a text 
file.

2)wxPython wigits. 

  - Yes they are many and varied (and seem to be increasing all the time), and 
in SIMPLE gui design are fine, easy to use, if all you want to do is to put 
up a few listboxes, drop down menu's and testboxes and labels.

 - The problem arises when you want to build complex visual tools - despite 
properties seeming to be present, such as border - 0, it is not possible (at 
least in my hands) to use borderless controls. This sets real constraints on 
how things look because you can't merge adjacent controls seamlessly, and the 
result tends to be clunky, and the borders consume extra pixels which over a 
whole screen height, adds up to heaps of space.  I've had this debate on the 
wxPython list, and had emails from Robin about this and the consensus at the 
time (some 18months ago - it may have changed) is that it just aint possible.

Having said all that, despite my vocal comments at the conference regarding 
wxPython (it really sucks etc), I'm not wholly against it. I can live it, I 
can design in it (heart sinks). Certainly I like the way one can write small 
subunits of gui design and then call them and plug them in anywhere.

Regards

Richard