[Pythoncard-users] Platform specific restrictions.

[Alex T. <al...@tw...>]

The Mac OS X guidelines, indeed the OS provided controls, have some 
restrictions on what they allow. Since wxWidgets uses these controls, 
wxPython and PythonCard have the same restrictions. Currently those 
restrictions are not reflected in the layoutEditor, which can lead users 
to think there is a bug in the layoutEditor (and therefore PythonCard in 
general). (btw - I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were indeed 
bugs in PythonCard and/or the layoutEditor that exacerbate these 
problems - but so far I haven't seen any confirmed cases).

There probably are lots of such restrictions, but the ones I  have come 
across are
 - textfields (i.e. single line TextCtrl) does not support setting the 
backgroundColour
 - textarea (i.e. multi-line TextCtrl) does not support alignment (other 
than left)
 - button does not support setting foregroundColour
 - button does not (adequately) support setting backgroundColour
         (the rectangle "behind" the button is set, but not within the 
button itself - ugly !!)

It would be good to not only document this somewhere, but (since it will 
be an easily overlooked footnote in the docs) also make it more obvious 
to a user when they try to set properties that will not be reasonably 
honoured cross-platform. This would be especially helpful if they are 
setting a property while on a system that doesn't really support it - 
but I think should be done anyway to help people design cross-platform 
apps if they so desire.

Would a dialog / preference be too intrusive ?   Something like
 
   You have set a property that is not supported on your current platform.
   [ ]  Don't give this warning again.                         ( OK )

and also same thing but "... supported on some other platforms."

If that was a preference - should it be per-user, or per project ?

Or would it be better to simply document it as prominently as we can ?

-- 
Alex Tweedly       http://www.tweedly.net



-- 
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.7.1/348 - Release Date: 25/05/2006