From: <bra...@om...> - 2005-03-29 22:57:43
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I'm beginning to spend more time using PythonCard during the course of work, and...so far, so good. I'm glad to have a tool like this available for Python, and I'm grateful to Kevin and the other contributors for their work on PythonCard and all the help I'm getting on the mailing list. When my skill level improves, I hope to help in whatever way I can. One of the things I really like about PythonCard is the HyperCard-like event handling hierarchy. Another thing I like is that PythonCard wraps a lot of wxPython stuff that I'm not ready to take on yet, but still allows me to use wxPython in small ways when I need to. In that respect, I think of PythonCard as wxTrainingWheels. But in other respects, PythonCard is a powerful IDE whose features I am still learning about. For the 1.0 release, I vote for sticking closely to the .81 release but fixing some of the Resource Editor glitches. It would be nice to have new features but stability of the API is very important to me. That said, maybe some small improvements and refinements can be added without upsetting the apple cart. In particular, I'm wondering if the Resource Editor can be improved without significantly changing PythonCard's underlying structure. On the other hand, there is one big feature that I'm hoping can be in the 1.0 release -- the PageBackground (wxNotebook). This is in the .81 release, but it seems to be in an experimental stage. I'd like to have some of the kinks worked out and have good documentation for it. The ability to create a tabbed interface, with tabs inside of tabs, is vital to the kinds of applications I'm going to be working on. The splitter interface seems less important to me. I've been saving up a list of ideas for improvements in PythonCard, some of which may be best suited for a much later release. Maybe this stuff is obvious to those who have been using PythonCard for awhile, but it can't hurt to mention them.... * ability to add parameters to childWindow and have them show up in the backgrounds on_initialize * Create a new Text Entry dialog which allows for multiple input fields, so you don't have to build a custom dialog for that feature. Maybe it takes a list of fieldnames as a parameter. * Placing text into widgets requires string values. It would be nice to have type coersion of primitives handled automagically, as it was in HyperCard. Even better, it would be nice to have them return values of their original type when accessed. * Resource Editor: * unpredictable about resizing some widgets. I'd like to see more consistent resizing behavior. - this is worse on Mac, hopefully will improve w future wxWidgets - new users are scared off by flaky Resource Editor behavior - if we can't fix this short term, we should warn new users - not to think the rest of PythonCard is flaky, because it isn't. * when you click a widget, it shouldn't move. It should only move when you hold down the mouse for a noticeable time. As it stands, I keep accidentally moving widgets. * ability to select multiple multiple widgets and move them as a group * with multiple widget select, could also have an Alignment tool ala FileMaker * format painter, similar to FileMaker 6+ 1. select a widget, and choose "Format Painter" from menu 2. the cursor changes to a paintbrush 3. any widget you click takes on the color and font properties 4. press ESC to get out of format painter mode *An alternative to format painter concept is copy/paste properties idea * Property Editor needs to be brought to the fore when the main Resource Editor window is selected (I get tired of having to re-invoke Property Editor when I'm switching between apps) * Ability to delete widget by pressing delete key (mine doesn't work under Mac or WinXP) * Notebook widget easier to use Maybe a Notebook property to hold a list of resource module names, and tab titles. Then the tabs would automatically appear, just like multicolumn list columns. You could even store the resource for each tab inside main window resource * a nice clever UI for specifying tab order. FileMaker's approach to this isn't bad, but may be too difficult in the short term. Maybe a simple "Tab Order" dialog listing text entry widgets and allowing them to be reordered. Also, tab order should be unrelated to layer level * default font property for the background resource which contained widgets would inherit. This could be specified in the GUI for bknd properties * Tool to convert a resource with statically placed widgets to sizer-based layout, and then back again. Ideally this could be done in Resource Editor... Another idea is the use of little "spring" meta-widgets similar to Mac OS X interface builder. These little springs keep the edge of a widget near the side of the window. |