Important question regarding next major Rev version]

[Chipp Walters]

Hi Valetia,

Though I'm somewhat suspicious of first-time-posters with such a dire
outlook, I'll do my best to try and answer some of your questions, and
perhaps pose a few in return.

>- real list fields with the option for real column headers that can be 
>dragged around and with built-in column sorting like real columns do. 
>You know what I'm talking about. "Normal" development environments 
>allow you to drag these things right into your project, no fuss.

While it would be nice to have some sort of list fields as you describe,
the problem comes when it just doesn't do exactly as you want. Case in
point, VB. Buttons in VB only act one way. You can't script them to do
anything differently. In many cases, I want the power and capability to
edit the function of the control...something you can't do in VB as it's
an ActiveX component. So, I roll my own, just like the VB guys do. In
fact there's a cottage industry built up around roll-your-own ActiveX
controls in VB. You can get different lists, trees, buttons, tabs,
toolbars -- all for a price. You can do the same in RunRev. I wrote a
XMLtree control one time, and use it in about 8 different places.

>- look at what rev is calling a "table object". It's hacked up too. 
>Doesn't look real at all. Turn on editable cells and you'll see what I 
>mean. The edit boxes look way too huge - why does Rev not use the 
>native ones????

Agreed. RR needs a table object. Course you could also write an ActiveX
DLL (we have a test version) which can use existing Table Objects and
other Active X controls, so you could have real widgets. RR is a small
company with limited resources and a very large task. They have to build
'widgets' for multiple platforms. Looked at Java's widgets lately? They,
too, have 'look and feel' problems.

>- native progress bars on all platforms. <snip>
>- native scroll bars on Windows. <snip>
>- native combo boxes. Same thing.
>- native tabs! <snip>


>- and of course the buttons!!! Enter Button Gadget. <snip>
>Why the emulation?

I believe it's already been mentioned here that native XP look and feel
support will be available next release.

Why the emulation? Well, in my case, I use ButtonGadget to build apps
which I can move from platform to platform with their own native
interface. It makes things much easier for me to port. Lots of other
cross platform programs do the same (Newtek Lightwave and graphics
programs already create their own GUI's, as does Trolltech QT and some
flavors of Java)

>You know, I may be spending less time coding but I am spending much 
>more time trying to make the interface look as natural as possible on 
>each of the major platforms, doing silly things like:

>1. Placing a field with graphics in it<snip>
>2. Creating another field that pretends to be the column headers of a 
>list field, <snip>
>3. No support for native re-ordering of items in a list field! <snip>

I am sorry you are so frustrated. Perhaps if you post a copy of your
stacks online, some of us may be able to help you make them look more
professional?

>4. I could go on and on...but the rev widgets just don't look and act 
>normal, and there are many missing pieces. Can someone from the rev 
>team *really* explain why this is so?

I'll leave this for Tuviah to detail, but both Trolltech QT and Java
(the other cross-platform authoring toolkits) have the same problem with
look and feel. Course, IMHO, it doesn't bother me too much. I seem to be
able to design and release products with little complaint regarding the
interface look and feel from my users.

>And of course there is the SSL feature, which people have been asking 
>for since at least Jan 2002 and which has been promised but still 
>nothing. It was promised for 2.2 but suddenly, no more 2.2! What 
>happened to it? Of course, it is now promised for 2.5...

Geez, now it sounds like you are just whining. C'mon, when RR didn't
have browser support, I purchased one (altBrowser). Same for proxy
servers. If you're a professional programmer, and you *need* a feature,
you can *always* get someone to write it for you! RR *is* extensible
that way! You can certainly add SSL for less than the cost of a single
TrollTech license.

>I see that most people who use rev don't seem to care about the user 
>interface of built desktop applications. Why?

Why would you posit such a ludicrous statement? I know that I care about
interface issues *very* much. Frankly, now you're starting to sound like
a Marketing person from a competing company.

-Chipp