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WxWidgets 3.2

wxwidgets.org

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Re: WxWidgets 3.2

#11

Post by bsenftner »

t0mas88 wrote: post #3

I used this 15+ years ago with C++, it was so much easier to do cross platform things that way and it had good performance. Now I think I have not worked on a native desktop app on at least 10 years. And everything I see others make is more hybrid, javascript, electron kind of things. The performance of that even though we have much faster hardware feels worse than what WxWidgets / C++ did 15 years ago...

I was an active user until 2 years ago, when I quit my last enterprise software job. They had a cross platform (including embedded systems) enterprise video security system, a suite of applications all written in wxWidgets. They screamed, they were so fast. They had to be, for our enterprise clients. But those same clients had typical "give me candy" managers, and they complained about the ancient native interface. That company chose to ditch wxWidgets, put everything behind a server I wrote, and then hire some over priced web agency to make them a web interface they charged 4 times the expense of the development entire enterprise software suite.

Re: WxWidgets 3.2

#12

Post by 72deluxe »

wslh wrote: post #10
tgv wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wrote a (simple) accounting/billing application for my inlaws' shop some 20 years ago wih wxWidgets. I developed it on a mac, but it ran on a PC. The PC was very modest even back then (some 486, at best), but the application ran like lightning.

The same for a MS-DOS Clipper [1] application written 30 years ago. Sorry, with all due respect to the wxWidgets contributors, aesthetically wxWidgets (like many other UI libs) is not for 2022. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_(programming_language)

But it just wraps the native controls...? You're effectively saying that native controls are not for 2022...

Re: WxWidgets 3.2

#13

Post by ale42 »

wslh wrote: post #10
tgv wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wrote a (simple) accounting/billing application for my inlaws' shop some 20 years ago wih wxWidgets. I developed it on a mac, but it ran on a PC. The PC was very modest even back then (some 486, at best), but the application ran like lightning.

The same for a MS-DOS Clipper [1] application written 30 years ago. Sorry, with all due respect to the wxWidgets contributors, aesthetically wxWidgets (like many other UI libs) is not for 2022. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_(programming_language)

> aesthetically wxWidgets (like many other UI libs) is not for 2022

wxWidgets applications are supposed to look native on every platform... what's the issue? Personally, I find apps with weird GUIs that don't look at all like the rest of the system very irritating. I would prefer developers to spend more time implementing features, and less making bling-bling UI things.

Re: WxWidgets 3.2

#14

Post by ale42 »

72deluxe wrote: post #5

A truly excellent toolkit. The code is very readable and the developers are quick to communicate/respond on the forum or stackoverflow. I wish more people used it instead of writing "apps" that are just a giant web browser with javascript and a hack to get menus working correctly, with fake UI widgets that don't respond like native window controls (no proper tab navigation, no moveable or resizeable dialogs, keyboard…

So true... some people seem to appreciate the their "aesthetics", but many 2022 UIs are just much worse than what we used to have with... Windows 3.1, or System 7 on Mac. They had uniform keyboard shortcuts (at least Windows, no idea for Mac which I used only very rarely), uniform window controls, applications that didn't need a 150 MB runtime... the worse, is that this is still possible today, just many people don't even bother to try doing it.

Re: WxWidgets 3.2

#15

Post by crb »

markdown wrote: post #6

Bit of a tangent, but it's nice to see a project with a googlable name. If this were started today it would be called Avocado or Potato or something like that.

Fun fact: it was named "wxWindows" when it launched.

Re: WxWidgets 3.2

#16

Post by 72deluxe »

bsenftner wrote: post #11
t0mas88 wrote: post #3

I used this 15+ years ago with C++, it was so much easier to do cross platform things that way and it had good performance. Now I think I have not worked on a native desktop app on at least 10 years. And everything I see others make is more hybrid, javascript, electron kind of things. The performance of that even though we have much faster hardware feels worse than what WxWidgets / C++ did 15 years ago...

I was an active user until 2 years ago, when I quit my last enterprise software job. They had a cross platform (including embedded systems) enterprise video security system, a suite of applications all written in wxWidgets. They screamed, they were so fast. They had to be, for our enterprise clients. But those same clients had typical "give me candy" managers, and they complained about the ancient native interface. T…

Lunacy. Change looks like progress to some people. And doubly so if it looks like all web UIs these days - loads of padding, giant buttons, and really slow to load and render.

Re: WxWidgets 3.2

#17

Post by 72deluxe »

ale42 wrote: post #14
72deluxe wrote: post #5

A truly excellent toolkit. The code is very readable and the developers are quick to communicate/respond on the forum or stackoverflow. I wish more people used it instead of writing "apps" that are just a giant web browser with javascript and a hack to get menus working correctly, with fake UI widgets that don't respond like native window controls (no proper tab navigation, no moveable or resizeable dialogs, keyboard…

So true... some people seem to appreciate the their "aesthetics", but many 2022 UIs are just much worse than what we used to have with... Windows 3.1, or System 7 on Mac. They had uniform keyboard shortcuts (at least Windows, no idea for Mac which I used only very rarely), uniform window controls, applications that didn't need a 150 MB runtime... the worse, is that this is still possible today, just many people don't…

I think there's an entire generation that think that UIs should be bloated and slow and have taken web apps to be the norm. It's very sad.

Re: WxWidgets 3.2

#18

Post by akerr »

I used WxWidgets almost 20 years ago with Python to quickly make a project that included printing support. I went from reading the docs to a working prototype in one night!

Hopefully this release will help the planned improvements to Audacity too.

Re: WxWidgets 3.2

#19

Post by tut-urut-utut »

WxWidgets is nice, used it in the past at one ocasion. It's just that I don't have any desire to touch anything C/C++.

If it had a Java wrapper so I can use it with Clojure, it would be another topic.

Re: WxWidgets 3.2

#20

Post by gen2brain »

wxWidgets are a perfect choice if you want cross-platform native controls. Just a reminder, Qt doesn't use native controls, it just emulates the native look and feel. Besides wxWidgets I know only IUP that uses system native controls (though Cocoa is a work in progress), and IUP deals with just UI, wx is like a Qt, a lot more.
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