Re: [Tcllib-devel] TBWidget Branch (please help on cvs organisation)

[Jeff H. <je...@ac...>]

On 07/08/2009 9:06 AM, Damon Courtney wrote:
> What does tklib/widget currently support that is basically ripped from
> BWidget?  What widgets from BWidget are actually worth saving?

One thing lacking in tklib/widget is docs for most of the widgets, but 
let me expound a bit on that here and answer the above.  Note that 
tklib/widget uses Ttk where ever possible.

Existing widgets in tklib/widget:

* widget::dialog
   A dialog shell, with auto-timeout and other features.  Similar to 
BWidget Dialog but with more features
* widget::menuentry
   Extends ttk::entry with a drop-down menu icon (e.g. for a search box)
* widget::calendar & dateentry
   calendar is a nice little month widget for selecting dates, and 
dateentry extends ttk::entry to make a date-selection entry widget.
* widget::panelframe & superframe
   Extended frame styles that wrap up and extend the ones in BWidget.
* widget::ruler & screenruler
   Cute little ruler, as widget or special purpose toplevel
* widget::scrolledwindow & scrolledtext
   Improvement on BWidget scrolledwindow, and scrolledtext which is more 
of an example widget that extends it
* widget::statusbar & toolbar
   Based on BWidget statusbar to start, these became a bit different. 
They could and should be rationalized to the same API, but I let 
statusbar and toolbar diverge a bit as I was playing with APIs that 
"felt right" in actual use.

In addition to the above, I have unfinished versions of ...

console, calculator, cmdmenu, taskpanel (this one is cool, contributed 
by Jeff Godfrey), and maybe some other stuff.

What about the rest of what BWidget has?  Let me go through the list, 
and you guys can add your own comments.

http://tcllib.sourceforge.net/BWman/contents.html

Note that I don't use any DnD stuff, and BWidget's dynamic help is 
inferior (IMO) to tklib/tooltip, so many widgets are pointless when you 
take those "features" away.

     Label 	Pointless, S.A.
     Entry 	Pointless, S.A.
     Button 	Deprecated by core
     ArrowButton 	99.9% used by ComboBox, deprecated by core
     ProgressBar 	Deprecated by core
     ScrollView 	Never used it, might be easy to port
     Separator 	Deprecated by core

Manager Widgets
     MainFrame 	Manage toplevel with menu, toolbar and statusbar
	I found this not useful, switched to widget::dialog
     LabelFrame 	Deprecated by core
     TitleFrame 	Deprecated by core
     PanelFrame 	Deprecated by core or widget::panelframe
     ScrolledWindow 	widget::scrolledwindow
     ScrollableFrame 	Don't use ... easy to port?
     PanedWindow 	Deprecated by core
     ButtonBox 	Meh, mostly used by MainFrame, prefer other methods
     PagesManager 	Nice if you need it, might be deprecated if the 
ttk::notebook improves to a good tabless-display
     NoteBook 	Deprecated by core
     Dialog 	widget::dialog
     StatusBar 	widget::statusbar

Composite Widgets
     LabelEntry 	bad UI
     ComboBox 	Deprecated by core
     SpinBox 	Deprecated by core
     Tree 	Deprecated by core
     ListBox 	prefer treectrl
     MessageDlg 	tk_messageBox anyone?
     ProgressDlg 	Use widget::toolbar with a ttk::progressbar
     PasswdDlg 	meh
     SelectFont 	not bad, but I always had to modify some bits
     SelectColor 	should port this one

So there is my review.  I encourage comments in support or against, as 
that will help move this or a new widget set forward.

Jeff