On Sat, 27 Feb 2016 11:07 pm, Chris Angelico wrote: >> Isn't there any good GUI IDE like Visual Basic? I hope there are some >> less well known GUI IDEs which I did not come across. Thanks. > > Sounds like the advantage lies with Python here... > > Don't make a UI by dragging and dropping that many widgets.
And later, in another post: > the best way to build a cross-platform GUI is code, not drag-and-drop. I think that's out-and-out wrong, and harmful to the developer community. I think that we're stuck in the equivalent of the pre-WYSIWYG days of word processing: you can format documents as nicely as you like, but you have to use a separate mode to see it. Drag-and-drop GUI builders have the same advantages over code as Python has over languages with distinct compile/execute steps: rapid development, prototyping, exploration and discovery. Of course, any decent modern builder won't limit you to literally drag-and-drop, but will offer functionality like duplicating elements, aligning them, magnetic guides, etc. GUI elements are by definition graphical in nature, and like other graphical elements, manipulation by hand is superior to command-based manipulation. Graphical interfaces for manipulating graphics have won the UI war so effectively that some people have forgotten there ever was a war. Can you imagine using Photoshop without drag and drop? And yet programming those graphical interfaces is an exception. There, with very few exceptions, we still *require* a command interface. Not just a command interface, but an *off-line* command interface, where you batch up all your commands then run them at once, as if we were Neanderthals living in a cave. An effective and modern GUI builder UI should be programmable without requiring programming. About thirty years ago Apple came up with the ideal mix of graphical and programmatic development for its Hypercard product. You built applications by dragging and dropping widgets on the screen, or by copying and pasting them from a library of pre-made widgets. (By 2016 standards the UI of Hypercard would seem a bit old fashioned and primitive -- black and white, bitmapped graphics, no magnetic guides or "replicate" command, etc -- but it was the mid 80s. A modern GUI builder wouldn't have those limitations.) Hypercard let you create a place widgets by hand using the mouse, or by running a one-line command in the "Message Box" (a simple command interpreter), and for complex tasks, or by writing a script and executing it. You didn't have to script the *entire* application, just as much or as little as needed scripting. Python would be especially well-suited to this, being an interpreter. Why should I have to batch up all the GUI elements and run them all at once to see what my application looks like? Why can't I add elements interactively? I've made a number of attempts to get into GUI development in Python, and every time I flounder at the lousy state of the art in GUI builder tools. Yes, the widget set is fantastic. But putting the GUIs together is primitive beyond words. Hypercard, bless Bill Atkinson, is long gone but not forgotten. But today it lives on in the guise of LiveCode: http://livecode.com/ If only I could get the Linux installer to actually, you know, *work*. -- Steven -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
