wxWidgets Discussion Forum

Hi,

After I saw and worked with Qt, I've got enough from sizers and I need something similar to that. I've started to creating this tool to complement wxFormBuilder. It's still in very early alpha stage, I don't know if I should continue it or not, for my needs it helped a lot. If required, there will be more releases available soon.

You can drag'n' drop widgets on the screen with mouse.
You can move UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT the widget with annor keys.
You can resize the widget with NUM8,2,4,6 keys.
You can increase/decrease the speed of moving/resizing with + & - keys

Download:
https://github.com/kurta999/wxCreator/releases

Screens:
https://gtfkephost.hu/files/2020/15/08/eq6ba3lbpm.png

kurta999 wrote: ↑Wed Apr 08, 2020 1:56 pmI've got enough from sizers

Out of curiosity, what do you mean by that? ..that you like or don't like them?

I don't really like them.

Can be useful in a few situations, that's true but I was unable to create a complex gui with sizers only. So I decied to make this small program.

I must say, that is a very wrong approach.

Sizers do work, in simple or complex situations. When they don't, it's most frequently a misuse rather than a bug, and if there was a bug, it will surely be quickly fixed. Also, being so widely used, there hardly are bugs with them.
But more important, building an app in the 21st century without sizers (or, well, other mechanism for ensuring correct dynamic layout, if you come up with a better one) will, without a doubt, be proven a mistake, and rather sooner than later.

Okey, I accept your opinion of course.

But then why QtCreator has drag'n' drop support without sizers? Then this is a bad thing too? I just would like to create something similar to make working with widgets easyer. In our company said that wxFormBuilder is too complicated due to sizers and they went to Qt because of drag'n'drop support. I think already a few people did that. I like Qt myself, but I don't like it's licesnsing mechanism so I would stick to wxWidgets.

I didn't know QtCreator, but from what i've read just now, it can use pixel-perfect layouts, but these are merely used to design custom GUIs, e.h. for mobile apps. For dynamic layouts with GUI elements, it uses the same concept as wxWidgets: https://doc.qt.io/qtcreator/creator-usi ... igner.html

Using sizers has significant advantages:
- cross platform-support. Different platforms have different default sizes for controls, font size etc.
- dynamic adjustment to different window sizes, e.g. when the user resizes a window
- easy support for High DPI displays
- i18n: some languages need longer gui texts
- and probably a few more

You have to choose what's more important for you.

I admit that there is no really good GUI editor for wxWidgets (at least AFAIK).

.Net win forms has anchor mechanism for widgets but it's not such convenient as using sizers.

I am sure that people with habit of using Qt or WinForms will glad to found familiar approach, so good luck

I admit that there is no really good GUI editor for wxWidgets (at least AFAIK).

<Cough>wxCrafter, the FOSS form designer that comes with the CodeLite IDE</Cough>

doublemax wrote: ↑Fri Apr 17, 2020 5:47 pm I didn't know QtCreator, but from what i've read just now, it can use pixel-perfect layouts, but these are merely used to design custom GUIs, e.h. for mobile apps. For dynamic layouts with GUI elements, it uses the same concept as wxWidgets: https://doc.qt.io/qtcreator/creator-usi ... igner.html

Using sizers has significant advantages:
- cross platform-support. Different platforms have different default sizes for controls, font size etc.
- dynamic adjustment to different window sizes, e.g. when the user resizes a window
- easy support for High DPI displays
- i18n: some languages need longer gui texts
- and probably a few more

You have to choose what's more important for you.

I admit that there is no really good GUI editor for wxWidgets (at least AFAIK).

Thank you for your response. Now thinghs are brighter for me.

Kvaz1r wrote: ↑Fri Apr 17, 2020 6:03 pm .Net win forms has anchor mechanism for widgets but it's not such convenient as using sizers.

I am sure that people with habit of using Qt or WinForms will glad to found familiar approach, so good luck

Thank you. I'm planning to develop it further, next plan is to add support for saving & loading editor files.
Currently the 0.2 which will be released soon looks: https://gtfkephost.hu/files/2020/16/18/rppl535229.png

DavidHart wrote: ↑Fri Apr 17, 2020 8:30 pm

I admit that there is no really good GUI editor for wxWidgets (at least AFAIK).

<Cough>wxCrafter, the FOSS form designer that comes with the CodeLite IDE</Cough>

This looks very promising but license is required :/

This looks very promising but license is required :/

No, it was never required. wxCrafter used to be nagware, but about a year ago it was made free. It now automatically comes as part of a CodeLite download, for CodeLite >=13.0; and CodeLite has always been FOSS.

Of course you can still buy a licence if you want to support wxCrafter.

Thanks!

I'll mail this to our company member who moved to Qt, might he return.

Anyway I've released v0.2, available on github. Now I'm working on saving & loading widgets from XML file. I'm waiting for reviews & comments about what do you think guys

Hi,
For the DnD you can try the latest wxGlade. But it is using sizers.

Thank you.

kurta999 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 17, 2020 4:27 pm Okey, I accept your opinion of course.

But then why QtCreator has drag'n' drop support without sizers? Then this is a bad thing too? I just would like to create something similar to make working with widgets easyer. In our company said that wxFormBuilder is too complicated due to sizers and they went to Qt because of drag'n'drop support. I think already a few people did that. I like Qt myself, but I don't like it's licesnsing mechanism so I would stick to wxWidgets.

Hi,

I used to use DialogBox with wxWidgets, now my job requires working with Qt's python bindings and I use QtDesigner for the GUI.
Both uses a very powerful layout mechanism which requires some practice to get used to it, but it will pay off on the long run.
Qt's UI design tool uses Drag and Drop to quickly create a widget and put it on a form/dialog/etc., but it never meant to be used without layouts.
This is 100% sure for desktop widgets, I don't know much about QtQuick, I'm not really interested in it

Direct positioning is a very outdated concept, considered a bad practice and comes with a lot of issues on desktop:
- fixed layout
- resolution dependent view
- clipping issues
...

I've built and building quite complex GUI's (for desktop) using layout engines and I can't even imagine working without them.

Can be useful in a few situations, that's true but I was unable to create a complex gui with sizers only. So I decied to make this small program.

Actually, there's a very few reasons to not use layout mechanism, the only thing I can think of is developing a GUI for embedded devices.

There are more GUI designers for wxWidgets that could be more flexible or easier to use than wxFormBuilder, I'd strongly suggest to evaluate those.
wxWidgets' layout system (the sizers) is very capable and once you get the hang of it, you wouldn't want to work without them.

Hi,
Sizers are useful even for an embedded platforms.

Thank you.

Hi,

Sizers are useful even for an embedded platforms.

I'm not saying sizers arent't useful for embedded devices, I just said that using direct positioning on those devices could be justified, since they usually have limited memory, CPU power and fix sized screen estate.

Cheers,
Imre