Are there good GUI builder for Perl GUI libraries, especially for WxPerl?
For Wx:
WxGlade
Any Wx tool that generates XRC files.
For Tk:
Zooz
SpeTcl
wxDesigner is the only one I know. I have never used it though.
It's still fairly new, but the Padre editor has an in-development Padre::Plugin::FormBuilder plugin that takes a wxFormBuilder project file and generates pure-Perl dialog classes.
Check out wxformbuilder. You can design your GUI there and generate an XRC file which wxPerl can then be configured to load.
There is The GUI Loft for Win32::GUI, but of course it's not portable off of Win32.
Of the GUI editors that I have tried briefly, wxGlade seems the most natural to use, but it still doesn't seem to have the "drag and drop" functionality that I grew to love when working with Java in Eclipse or Netbeans. Don't get me wrong, I love Perl, but would still really like to see a nice WYSIWYG GUI editor.
I would recommend simply using web-based interfaces for everything. If you went with this approach, you could even run a local (i.e. on a Desktop) web server for "standalone" applications.
In like manner, ActiveState decided to focus on Web-based development instead of continuing work on their GUI editor
Related
I am learning Java and my IDE is Eclipse Mars. I was wondering if there was a way to create a GUI in Eclipse?
I researched it and the only half decent way I can find was pretty complex, any ideas?
Eclipse includes WindowBuilder, a "bi-directional Java GUI designer." Whether you have it installed in your Eclipse depends on which package you downloaded; if you downloaded Eclipse IDE for Java Developers then it's already included. If you got a different package, you can install WindowBuilder via these instructions.
Eclipse itself has only the coding function when it comes to GUIs.
If you really want to know your way around GUIs I recommend you learn it by programming it.
If you just want to try it out one time or start with easier lessons and then go into programming it yourself I recommend the IDE "Netbeans". It has a drag-and-drop kinda GUI builder implemented with which GUIs are very easy to implement.
Especially if your are just learning Java I recommend learning the basics in Java first, insert your functions into an easy to build GUI with Netbeans and later on go into fully programming GUIs.
Netbeans is also free and pretty much the same as eclipse. Maybe less customizable features, but for beginners and people who want to know how GUI works its perfect.
Does anyone know of a good IDE for GUIs made with TKX? Drag and drop capabilities like NetBeans or VS would be nice.
"SpecTcl is a WYSIWYG GUI-Builder for Tcl/Tk, with sibblings for generating code in Perl, Java, Python & Ruby. It runs on all platforms where Tcl/Tk runs. It is simple and quick to use, yet still powerful when you know your Tcl/Tk."
See http://sourceforge.net/projects/spectcl/
I have recently started working with Perl. Googling reveals a number of editors but I am unable to find an editor that will help me navigate a large body of Perl source code. One of the features that I am looking for is the ability of the IDE to integrate with different modules and allow me to jump from one to another. If possible, it will also help if one can see the which function calls what.
I used source insight for C programming and it provides these very useful features. Am looking for similar features in perl.
Help appreciated
Have you looked at Padre? It is a Perl IDE developed by the Perl community.
I'm just giving EPIC a chance.
http://www.epic-ide.org/
Its an Eclipse plugin utilizing a mighty IDE. The advantage I see in using EPIC over Padre is the fact that eclipse can do all sorts of languages and I don't have to get used to multiple different editors every time.
Another great aproach for Perl programming is using emacs. Yes ... its old but I had quite some joy while getting into Perl.
cu
Roman
Komodo IDE, from Active State is also quite good. I haven't used any other Perl IDEs so cannot make comparisons. Most of the features that you are looking for I believe are available in Komodo.
On a side note: The feature that I most appreciated in Komodo was visual debugging.
I mainly use jEdit for Perl programming.
The PerlSideKick plugin, allows you to navigate huge Perl modules (mainly just a plugin for the SideKick plugin).
But there's not much to give you that easy Shift+click navigation you get from Eclipse. jEdit is 100% programmable through Beanshell macros (and JavaScript and Python and JRuby...). So, you can do some of this yourself. So there would be work involved.
For example, it been close enough for me to create "Selection macros" that will allow certain actions on the package or name either highlighted or at the caret. For example, open up the module indicated by the package name.
The Navigator plugin will at least remember where you were last across files.
You might be able to do cross-module navigation through one of the tags plugins
So this won't get you all the way you'd want to go, but it will get you some of the way, and for $0.
It has the most configurable source highlighting this side of writing Emacs-LISP.
It does FTP and remote editing cleaner than most editors I've used.
You can build up a library of Beanshell (shorthand Java) scripts that really help you get what you want done.
Just remember that this recommendation comes with caveats. I have found EPIC quite sub-standard for my use.
I have a bunch of related Perl scripts that I would like to put together in one convenient place. So I was thinking of building a GUI and incorporating the scripts. I'm using Strawberry Perl on Windows XP and have just installed Tk from cpan about fifteen minutes ago. Before I go for it, I want some sound advice either for or against it.
My other option is to translate the Perl scripts into VB and use Visual Studio 2008, but that might be too much hassle for an outcome that might end up all the same had I just stuck with Perl & Tk.
I haven't looked yet, but maybe there is a module for Visual Studio that would allow me to invoke Perl scripts?
The main requirements are:
It must be able to communicate with MySQL
It must be able to fetch & parse XML files from the internet
It must be transportable, scalable, and sustainable
What direction would you take?
I've built Perl/Tk apps on Windows before and found it just fine, including using PAR to package everything up for distribution to others. It was nice being able to do most of my development on a proper Linux system and have things just magically work on Windows :) The only gotcha I encountered is that Tk doesn't play well with ithreads.
I personally would recommend wxPerl over Tk. It has native looking widgets, at least in my view leads to cleaner code and you can use wxGlade as a GUI designer.
If you haven't programmed with Perl/Tk I would think that Tkx (developed by Activestate) would be a better option. Tkx is a thin layer over Tcl/Tk, which gives it access to the new themed widgets in Tcl/Tk so your application would look better.
Perl/Tk has a lot more documentation around, but the module itself does not seem to be developed anymore. The documentation for Tkx is very sparse but by following the Tkx tutorial files on CPAN, it should be easy to get started.
WxWidgets (available for Perl via wxPerl) is an excellent graphical toolkit, but wxPerl only implements a subset of the available widgets.
PAR is convenient but if you go with Perl/Tk, the result will not run natively on OS X. (Users will need to run X11 first, which is problematic, especially with more recent version of OS X). If you go with Tkx, you can get native application on Mac OSX. Also, ActiveStates's PDK gives you a simple way to package everything to deploy to Windows, Linux, and OS X.
For reference, see the the software (AntConc and AntWordProfiler) at the following site http://www.antlab.sci.waseda.ac.jp/software.html, where AntConc was developed using Perl/Tk and AntWordProfiler was developed using Tkx.
The Process class allows to start new processes from a C# (WPF/Winforms) frontend.
I guess that way you can keep your Perl scripts and use the nice Visual Studio GUI builder.
I am looking into designing new features for Eclipse-based programming tools, from the requirements/ideas perspective. To really do this quickly, I would like to sketch UI elements without having to code things -- my concern is with the concepts and ideas right now, not the possible later realization. Are there any such graphical sketching tools for Eclipse?
(on a side note, I should also note that I find Eclipse a better idea every day, in the way that you can combine partial systems from very many different sources into a single environment. It really is the future of IDEs, especially for embedded systems. It used to pretty horrible pre-Eclipse-3.0, but now it does seem to work)
WireframeSketcher is a tool that helps quickly create wireframes, mockups and prototypes for desktop, web and mobile applications. It comes both as a standalone version and as a plug-in for Eclipse IDEs. It has some distinctive features like storyboards, components, linking and vector PDF export. Among supported IDEs are are Aptana, Flash Builder, Zend Studio and Rational Application Developer.
(source: wireframesketcher.com)
Incidentally, NetBeans is known for having a really good GUI editor (Matisse), but I realize that you weren't asking about NetBeans :)
I've tried the Visual Editor Project before, but in the past it crashed my instance of Eclipse, and I haven't visited it since.
Jigloo is a new one that I'd like to try out soon.
This is really specific to Eclipse: it is the platform of choice for general IDEs today, and I am looking to sketch out extensions to it. The target programming language is more likely to be raw assembler and C than anything else -- OS, driver, system-level debug.