The widgets are kind of nice, but I don't see them as a tool to allow
me to theme my app. I see them as a tool that eventually allows me
talk to the API of the OS.
They are a great deal more than that. Whilst LCB will have high-level
foreign code access abilities (at the moment it is still quite
nuts-and-bolts'), it as much about that (if not more so) a way to allow
to write code which works in the same 'encapsulated' way engine code
does and do so in way that ensures (in the medium term at least) will
have much better performance than equivalent code written in LCS.
[ Performance here is actually two separate facets:
1) compound controls as currently written in LCS are hugely
in-efficient for particular kinds which are written often, the overhead
of a myriad of controls cannot be mitigated regardless of how efficient
execution of script is.
2) the actual execution speed of the code, by being more particular
LCB will be compilable to a more efficient execution model more easily
and more widely. ]
I expected to have a way to apply themes to windows, buttons, fields
(scroll bars) and other controls. I didn't expect to have to learn
another language to do this. I thought this would be a step towards
native themes on iOS and Android and compatibility with themes on
Linux. Did I misunderstand this completely ?
You won't.
We are building a themeing library in LCB which widgets will be able to
use. So the goal is that a widget which has been written to use the
library to draw itself will be switchable between any theme which
supports the parts the widget requires.
i.e. If you aren't writing widgets then we want to make sure widgets
theme appropriately, and if you are writing widgets then you can make
theme theme easily and in a consistent way.
Even if I misunderstood what the feature entails, will we still have
the pluggable themes as promised within a reasonable time frame, say 3
months? (Reasonable, since all goals should have been reached some
time ago by now).
Forgive me if I do not comment on timescale, but what I can say is that
getting themeing working in the initial set of widgets is very high
priority.
Unfortunately this is one project we had to suspend temporarily in order
to sort out our build system for the product itself (we've been putting
this off for a while to pour all our energies into direct product
development but it got to the point we could no longer) which is why
there's been no sign of it just yet, however, work will resume on it
shortly.
--
Mark Waddingham ~ m...@livecode.com ~ http://www.livecode.com/
LiveCode: Everyone can create apps
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