From: david@... Date: 2005-08-11T00:09:09+09:00 Subject: Re: FXRuby or wxRuby? Cit�t Lothar Scholz : > Hello david, > > dvn> The "ugly" says is all. FOX looks very foreign to me on Windows, doesn't > seem to > dvn> even try to look like the XP widgets do. I stopped playing with > FreeRIDE > dvn> because of the file dialog used, which doesn't remember the last > location > dvn> visited, for example. > > No toolkit does this as it is the task of the GUI application itself, > otherwise different open dialogs would show the same directory. So you > must blame FreeRIDE here. In this specific example, the dialog still looks very out of place on XP. And the default location opened for a file dialog -is- the work of the GUI toolkit, which should respect the default platform policy for that. Which would obviously not be an issue if the dialog was the one provided by the OS widget set. I also have a hunch Windows automatically stores the last location used by an instance of a native File Dialog somewheres in the registry, at least while the program is running. I'll have to toy around with SWT or wxPython to verify that. > FOX 2.0 will have theming. There is a patched FOX version out there > (search the mailing list) which already uses the windows theming API and > looks as native as you want it. Unfortunately you can't link this > together with FXRuby. I still have personal issues about reinventing the wheel. With synthethised widget toolkits, you still usually go off and re-do the logic of applying the theme on each OS. Or maybe not, I'm not going to pretend I've ever seen GUI toolkit code here. Still, the discussion was which of two toolkits to use, and I think it is very unlikely a synthetised widget toolkit can by definition "get things right" sooner or more completely than a native one, and there's always a quirk lurking behind the corner. > Right. But if the target audience are also technical people the different > FOX look is not so important. In times of skins, web applications and > dozens different GUI themes, the consistence look is not so important > anymore. I'm a technical person and I'm ticked off to no end by applications having an out-of-place L&F. Right now I'm having problems giving my desktop a white on black look to save what's left of my eyesight -precisely- because each and every app has its own mechanism of skinning, and applies system defaults rather randomly. Gray88 text on a white background everywhere, because authors of skins, IDE editor settings, and stylesheets -always- presume I use a white or light background, but don't bother to change the text colour settings along. I have an urge to stab someone in the eye with a rusty fork each time that happens. Skinning and theming is more of an issue for the OS, or window manager if you wish, and having your application apply its own settings is not really an advantage. Strange I never hear the argument about L&F consistency not being important from any end users.