wxFormBuider, communtiy, etc...

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Iceberg
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wxFormBuider, communtiy, etc...

Post by Iceberg »

Dear Developers!

wxWidgets is great - i'm so exited about it. I want to thank everyone who develops it right now, and i respect everyone who supports it. But there are some reasons OTHER people prefer Qt instead.

I should say it's improtant to support wxFormBuilder, and there's plenty of reasons why. I personally find it rather conveniently, not extremely neccessarry, but it has a role when speak about design - most of it shouldn't require C++ at all. So, it would be great to improve these things:
  • More activity in developing wxFormBuilder, and including it in standart wxWidgets source
    Simple - just include it in your Donwloads! Most people that start with wx don't even notice that it has form builder. You should include it, not only - you should remark, that wx has graphic Designer application. Having such a thing is giving you an advantage, so, it's neccessarry to develop it's popularity. It will be extremely usefull to imrpove wxFormBuilder to something like QtDesigner. This is very important, then it brings to wx cool design features, like in Point of Sale, or Qt.
  • Theme changing for wxFormBuilder
    90% of people prefer using dark theme. So, it's logical to add theme support to the form builder. It will help work efficiently at night. Also, apps that use dark theme(especially redactors) have much better look in dark. I don't say it's always so, but mostly dark theme looks pretty nice. Not only dark! You could just make it user-editable! And then we'll figure out what theme we prefer :) Maybe it's also possible to import/export themes to share them with the communtiy. That would be cool!
  • Drag-And-Drop with widgets
    It's not so neccessarry, but this is the part of the convenience. It seems more natively - to drag and drop widgets where they should be, even though their positions are set manually.
  • YouTube, Patreon, other social stuff...
    To create YouTube channel(if it's possible). With tutorials, news, community Q&A, blogs... YouTube is great for involving new people! And for every open-source project, it's neccessarry to have big community. Think of Blender 3D - it's community is giant! It's because of forums, blogs, news, and active developers. You have active developers - why don't you go further? :) Blender has money to evolve, and upgrade itself, and so you will, if you'll have big community.
  • Native form for every operating system
    I'm about Windows. On every Windows version, form builder displays a form from Windows XP when designing. This is quite disappointing for me. I don't know, maybe it's not so important for, other people, but if it's not hard to do, then it would be great to add support of native operation system forms to it. I mean, form on Windows 10 while working in form builder looks like form on Windows 10, not like Windows XP.
Everyone needs framework to develop desktop apps these days, otherwise it's really hard to get in all the specific things like multiplatforming, rendering, gui engine structure, and that kind of stuff. You have great one! And reaching these concepts is hard, but it will work for you for sure. Yeah, i know - maybe I should do it if i want to see it in wxWidgets - i can't help much (now), i can only support it. But I hope these ideas will help you to see things you need to improve in your framework, and make it stronger, and more popular. So, to everyone, who develops and supports wx - i'm really greatfull for reading this topic, and i hope you are interested in. I ask the community to support this topic, to rasie up more activity and people. We should be more active, because the more we speak about it, the more ideas we have, the more we support it - the faster it evolves.

Thanks for reading!
Nicholas
Last edited by Iceberg on Sun Feb 23, 2020 5:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
DavidHart
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Re: wxFormBuider, communtiy, etc...

Post by DavidHart »

Hi,
wxWidgets is great - i'm so exited about it.
I'm glad you like it. But a few comments:
Dear Developers!
This is a user forum. Very few wx devs post here.
i found only 3 articles related to wxFormBuilder on the entire forum
Putting 'wxFormBuilder' in the search box: "Search found 1083 matches"
More activity in developing wxFormBuilder
wxFB isn't the only IDE for wx. See this wxWiki page.
including it in standart wxWidgets source
Why? A (to me) surprising number of wx users don't use an IDE, and many (I suspect most) of those who do, use a different one. People who do want to use wxFB can easily download it themselves.
Theme changing for wxFormBuilder
This is a wxWidgets forum. Suggestions for wxFB improvements should go to their site.
We should be more active, because the more we speak about it...
'Talk is cheap' ;) . If you want to improve wxWidgets (or wxFB) I suggest you create and submit code improvements.

Regards,

David
Iceberg
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Re: wxFormBuider, communtiy, etc...

Post by Iceberg »

Hello, David, thanks for reply!
Very few wx devs post here.
Thanks, now i know.
Putting 'wxFormBuilder' in the search box: "Search found 1083 matches"
Sorry, i figured it out later.
wxFB isn't the only IDE for wx. See this wxWiki page.
Wow, there are lots. But i think wxFB is the most advanced(for me).
...and many (I suspect most) of those who do, use a different one.
.
So, it turns out there are more advanced or convenient IDEs for designing? Could you please provide some information IDEs that are better than wxFB? WxGlade seems to be too primitive for me.
Why? A (to me) surprising number of wx users don't use an IDE
That is why they don't use it. WxFB seems to be unpopular. If it's 3rd party software, then sorry, maybe it's not relevant. But as an idea, it would be great to have something like Qt has - QtDesigner. Because it isn't provided in the official websites, some people just don't know about it!(sounds ironically, but there are several cases). That's why people don't use it, and that's why it's hard to develop. As i've said, all i speak about is relevant only in case wxFormBuilder isn't 3rd party software.
This is a wxWidgets forum. Suggestions for wxFB improvements should go to their site.
But they don't have official forums. They have GitHub page, bit they don't have forum(at least i haven't found any yet).
'Talk is cheap' ;) .
Disagree. Not in this case. The more popular it is, the more developers will come. As i've mentioned, think of Blender 3D. So, public, share, spread it across the internet, and it will grow, and grow exponentially - the more people are involved, the more people will come.

Regards
Nicholas
DavidHart
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Re: wxFormBuider, communtiy, etc...

Post by DavidHart »

So, it turns out there are more advanced or convenient IDEs for designing? Could you please provide some information IDEs that are better than wxFB?
I use (and help out on) wxCrafter, the form designer part of the CodeLite RAD. For other people's opinions see various threads in this subforum, the most recent being this one.
ONEEYEMAN
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Re: wxFormBuider, communtiy, etc...

Post by ONEEYEMAN »

Hi,
Let me make something very clear.
1. When we are talking about wxFormBuilder, wxCrafter, wxGlade, etc, we are talking about the RAD tool and not the whole IDE.
RAD tool is the tool that helps the developer design the GUI. IDE is exactly that - a development environment. In the IDE you will have an editor, a compiler, a debugger and a lot of other helpful stull. Now an IDE might include a RAD tool as part of it, but one is not necessary.
2. wxFormBuilder, wxCrafter, wxGlade and so forth all are 3rd party tools. Therefore they don't belong inside wxWidgets repository. It is up to the user of the library to do the research, find the best one for themselves and use it.
3. Also, as David points out - core wx-devs are not on this forum. This forum was created by the users of the library for the user of the library.
I don't know about all other RAD tools, but wxGlade is currently on GitHub, and you can make a comkment there or subscribe to their ML and read it. I'm sure all other RAD tools do the same.
4. If you are not satisfied with anything inside the RAD tool for wxWidgets - most of them are open source.
Get the code, play with it and submit the patch as improvements. People will be grateful for what you did.

BTW, wxWidgets itself still supports Windows XP SP3, so you seeing the controls from that era is not surprising.

Thank you.
PB
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Re: wxFormBuider, communtiy, etc...

Post by PB »

Iceberg wrote: Sun Feb 23, 2020 12:32 pm
  • Theme changing for wxFormBuilder
  • Native form for every operating system
(Speaking for Windows version)
AFAIK, neither is possible and it is on Microsoft.

wxWidgets on Windows uses Win32 API. Microsoft now calls this API legacy and did not add a support for dark mode to it: they have been wanting this API to die out for quite some time so no wonder no new features have been made avialable there. The only Windows apps using dark mode are either UWP or custom-drawn (WPF, blender, Electron-based...) with the exception of File Explorer where MS took painful focused effort to make it work. You can check for yourself, set Win10 to Dark Mode and observe that even the built-in Win32 programs such as Notepad, WordPad, or Paint happily remain blissfully ignorant of it. Unfortunately, Microsoft abandoning Win32 API does not bode well for the future of wxWidgets on Windows. While the new Windows UI controls can be accessed with C++/WinRT, there is virtually zero probability that wxWidgets will have fully working version using those controls.

Similarly, while wxFB window caption in design mode looks like one from Win95, it is not possible to draw a native looking caption using Win32 API on Windows 10, drawing e.g. the close button it would look like on Win7 with Aero. You can check for yourself, e.g. testing the DrawTheme*() API or using theme-explorer.

To conclude, Win32 API (basically introduced in 16-bit Windows and mostly finalized in WinXP) is dead, long live <?>. And call me pessimistic, I do not see a bright future for wxWidgets either, with use of both C++ and native development on steep decline GUI-wise.
Iceberg
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Re: wxFormBuider, communtiy, etc...

Post by Iceberg »

So, that means wxWidgets uses too old libraries, and it may cause big problems while designing. As you have said, using Win32 is bad for wxWIdgets future. Does that meani should change my framework again? I'm looking for good ones for commertial purposes, but i hate Qt for it's 5000$/year/person. I find wx quite cool and inteersting, but i'm frustrated with the fact that this framework uses old API. What should i do then, and can these things change in future, with newer versions of wx? Or are there better framworks(except Qt)?
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Re: wxFormBuider, communtiy, etc...

Post by ONEEYEMAN »

Hi,
You can try .NET.
I hear MS making it cross-platform as well.

But I don't think wxWidgets will change. When you need to create a desktop application which will look native on all 3 major platforms with C++ - wxWidgets is the way to go. And I seriously doubt Win32 API will be gone anytime soon. After all people will still create their software with MFC (which is Win32-based).

Thank you.
PB
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Re: wxFormBuider, communtiy, etc...

Post by PB »

Win32 GUI (i.e., common controls and dialogs etc.) is not dead but it is on life support, i.e., no new major features such as Dark Mode are being introduced. But at least HiDPI support has been added.

I think the GUI toolkit of choice for .NET is WPF and that WPF is not cross-platform (is not a part of .NET Core). I am not even sure MS is still heavily invested in WPF.

AFAIK, there are only two fully featured C++ (multiplatform) GUI toolkits (sorry, Fltk): Qt and wxWidgets. So it is not like there is much to choose from.

I am interested in Windows only but even then there is not much choice. Seems like Electron is gaining popularity but at the first glance, I can't say I find it that great. E.g., huge size, memory footprint, and start-up time of the runtime (Chromium), GUI features limitations (compare MSVS vs MSVS Code), JavaScript suitability for development of complex programs...
Last edited by PB on Thu Feb 27, 2020 8:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
Kvaz1r
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Re: wxFormBuider, communtiy, etc...

Post by Kvaz1r »

Nobody knows when this future will come so at least for now you still can use wxWidgets. And for now there isn't many good GUI C++ alternatives (if they even exists, maybe only ImGui, but I never used this one). People are conservative so it definitely will takes some time and MFC is good example.
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Re: wxFormBuider, communtiy, etc...

Post by Kvaz1r »

PB wrote: Thu Feb 27, 2020 8:17 am I think the GUI toolkit of choice for .NET is WPF and that WPF is not cross-platform (is not a part of .NET Core). I am not even sure MS is still heavily invested in WPF.
There is Avalonia cross platform framework for .Net, it's not a mature project (they in beta stage) yet but very perspective.
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Re: wxFormBuider, communtiy, etc...

Post by mariedanials »

wxFB relies on principle of inheritance so the it generates two sets of files, Base class and Child class (inheriting from base class). Then it expects you to modify ONLY inherited class files and every time you regenerate codes it overwrites the base class without touching the latter.

That being said, you can find tutorials and videos on internet by simple search.

Note: I used wxFB long ago, so there might be slight change as to how it works. I currently use wxCrafter that comes with CodeLite. You might need to take a look at it.
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