From: thunk <gmkoller@...>
Date: 2010-10-25T08:21:34+09:00
Subject: GUI (Tk) and Web Questions,  general...


Hi all,

My story is that I had a GUI project that had to get done in a hurry
for a presentation and for a number of reasons I got started using Tk
version 8.4.19  that works well (for me) with Ruby1.9 (so far).

After spending about a week ( not all of it entirely rewarding :( ) I
actually starting "liking" the package after a built a couple of quasi
wrapper classes and I found some useful documentation sources.

Now I have spent several additional weeks with other parts of the
project in the foreground but I keep updating the GUI. I am actually
liking things more and more as I am getting comfortable the various
issues.

HOWEVER, IN THE LONG RUN - maybe 6 months -  this App (probably) needs
to be BROWSER based.  There seems to be a decent chance that Tk 8.4
will let me get a nice working design done (based on sockets) and that
we could contract with a Programmer to convert the DeskTop App to a
Web App.

I say "probably" because ActiveState, the company that sells the Tcl
Dev Kit"  for all OS of direct concern now has a number of products
some of which seem to be set to work with Ruby.  (Also  the initial
intended audience is small - so distributing a truly stable/multi-os/
multi everything desktop pkg seems like an OK idea - IF it really
works without issues.)

So there are just a bunch of questions here:

1.  Is Tk version 8.4.19  considered "ancient history" these days and
generally only a few folks using it - or is it considered "ok" to use
for putting a GUI together?

2. Is the TclDevKit gaining any "favor" in the Ruby community, are
"many" folks using it? / is it considered something like "state-of-the-
art" and/or "Clean" compared to the 8.4 stuff?

Any thoughts on this issue of "mocking up forms in 'DeskTop' mode" to
bet moved to an eventual Browser App with minimal effort will be
greatly appreciated.


Thanks!

george




Notes:

Already using "NoteBook" widget for Tabs and a half dozen Combo-boxes,
ListBoxes, over a dozen buttons and so on.  Considered using Shoes,
but I could not tell what other issues I would run into using
TCPSockets and all.