Panel/Form Widget

[Richard Gaskin]

Dalton Calford wrote:

 > I am not saying groups are not workable, I am just saying, that in
 > comparison to other 'container' style controls on multiple other
 > development platforms, they are not as easy to use, nor as versatile.

Can you tell us more about how they differ in regard to what you're 
currently building so we can use your real-world use-case to guide an 
implementation?


 > In java, delphi, access, kde (the list goes on), you can do all the
 > work you are describing without a single line of code.
 > Drop a 'container widget' onto a form (stack), change the properties
 > you wish (transparency, mouse over, child flow, etc) and drop the
 > widgets you want onto it (changing their properties as needed).

So the workflow is quite similar to how we use LC's DataGrid.  Which is 
a custom control.  Which is what I proposed.  And which remains the most 
viable option for immediate results.


 > The container automatically becomes a type of object which you can
 > inherit from and can itself become embedded into another container.
 > No code needed.

I have no experience with such systems.  I only work with computers, 
where nothing happens until someone writes some code. :)

Whether the core team writes it, or I write it, or you write it is the 
question at hand.

But if you want it, someone needs to write it.


 > Livecode has a great deal to say for itself, but, in this one area, it
 > is still in the stone age when it comes to modern practices.

Perceived modernity is fashion; my interest is in utility.

A request for this feature, known in the xTalk world as "Viewers" thanks 
to Gain Momentum having introduced it back in the mid-90s, has already 
been submitted:
https://quality.livecode.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2786

Given the age of the request, as I wrote earlier I would not suspend 
development of current projects waiting for the core team to implement that.

If it must be done in the most expensive of options, in C++ within the 
engine, we can either continue to not have it while we wait for the 
engine team to build it, or spend considerable money hiring competent 
C++ professionals from the community to submit a series of pull requests 
for it.

But this is LiveCode.  There are nearly always multiple ways to solve 
anything.

The DataGrid would have been prohibitively expensive to attempt to 
implement in C++, which is why the flexibility it provides is nearly 
unnmatched among any other tool I've ever seen.

And so it can be with something very akin to Viewers.

We can build it.  Today.  We can have it.  We can enjoy it. Now.

But someone needs to write it.

And to do that, it needs a specification.

Which returns us to the question I asked earlier:  can you tell us more 
about the project you're building which requires this?


-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Systems
  Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
  ____________________________________________________________________
  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com                http://www.FourthWorld.com