[DUG] Toolsets (was Re: Company closing)

Tue Nov 30 21:24:49 NZDT 2010

Re: WebKit – if this is the UI toolkit that underpins the native Windows GUI (options dialogs etc) of Chrome then you just provided a gold plated example of a Windows GUI that doesn’t look/feel like a Windows GUI, but which feels very much like a lowest-common-denominator UI, like the very worst of the Java UI’s.

If this really is the “state of the art” then we should be aiming higher.  Much, MUCH higher.  And I don’t think Embarcadero command the same resources as Google to the chances of successfully reaching higher.... ... 

From: delphi-bounces at delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-bounces at delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of John Bird
Sent: Tuesday, 30 November 2010 9:15 p.m.
To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List
Subject: Re: [DUG] Toolsets (was Re: Company closing)

I sort of disagree - A common VCL is the ideal solution.

What makes Delphi a success on Windows is that it is Pascal and also close enough to the Windows controls that it produces what looks like native Windows applications, using the best of Windows XP/Vista/7 appearances.

If they do a Mac version I reckon to be cool and admired has to be the same – it has to be close to the Cocoa interface and make native Mac applications.   Each VCL control has to to give most or all of the latest mac control equivalents.

That way there will be some differences – some properties of controls and events on Windows will not have an exact matching mac equivalent....probably the best is to just the property or event map to the matching equivalent on mac if its close, otherwise ignored.  That way code can be moved back and forth, and some parts – eg some events will not work – so the programmers can attack them one at a time to insert the mac equivalent...

cases like that you have almost no alternative but to have ifdef’d code, but hopefully manageably small cases.

This is better than having a bland lowest common demominator VCL.

There are some examples out there of cross platform applications and frameworks – these are quite a long way ahead of Delphi as far as cross platform, so unless Delphi can do it in a more elegant way than its been done already it may cater for Delphi apps but won’t pick up programmers from other languages.   I think the main other successes out there are Webkit (whatever is used as core of Chrome and Safari)   QT which I think is underneath Opera, XULRunner which is behind Firefox and Thunderbird.   Apple have made cross platform versions of iTunes as well, and MS has mac versions of MSOffice – so these also must have some strategy for managing code across different OS’s.   Java too – although in that case its mainly the JVM that is tailored to each OS?   I would be most interested to hear more of how they all do it compared to what Delphi could do better.

I am also involved in the Firefox community and one of the main debates there is how much the code and UI should be same across all and how much it should blend in with the OS themes and styling – the next version of Firefox (V4) for instance will get quite different appearances (more than now for instance) on XP, Windows 7, mac and linux to better fit in with each OS styling.

John

On 30 November 2010 09:56, Jolyon Smith <jsmith at deltics.co.nz> wrote:

What we need is a Delphi for Cocoa.

What we *don't* need is a Delphi (or a VCL) for a Lowest Common Denominator
that fits Windows and Mac and Linux and phones and toasters and key-fobs.

Totally agree with Jolyon. 

Initially, I was really looking forward to Delphi for Mac. But the more I think about it, solutions that are not based on the native GUI frameworks for each platform will most likely result in sub-par applications. If I want to design a cross-platform app for both Windows and Mac, then my design decision would be to refactor out all of the non-gui logic into their own units and then build separate user interfaces using the native UI components for each platform.

As Jolyon stated, what makes sense/looks good in a Mac application does not necessarily make it appropriate for a Windows application and vice versa. If you want to do a proper job, you will most likely create seperate UI's for each platform. If that, being the case, it makes no sense to aim for that lowest common denominator because in the end you will please neither of your Windows or Mac users.

I think Embarcadero's plan to use a common 'VCL" will initially satisfy the uninitiated who wants to go cross-platform "easily" and "quickly" but will be annoying if you want to create apps that are designed specifically for the platform that they are to be hosted on. I see this as the same problem with the attempt to get existing Delphi applications Unicode-ready. The ideas was to make it "easy" for existing code to become Unicode but it made it confusing for new apps going forward. I think this will be the same for cross platform development for Delphi using this common VCL approach.

Colin

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