If a custom list control is to be developed for S60 5th edition phones, what is the best approach to do that?
The control should enable rich presentation of data in custom layouts. It should be possible to include images, texts, buttons in every item. Each list item should be able to expand/collapse to provide more details about the item, and the rest of the list should adapt to the display space that is left.
Do you know of any Symbian application that has a control similar to this?
As this control should be flexible as well, I have been thinking about using some UI layout that is configurable by XML. So far, I have come up with HTMLControl for Symbian. What else can you recommend? What's your best practice?
The UI is tightly linked to native code in C++, so I am not considering WRT.
Subclassing listboxes in S60 (Avkon) is a major pain. I've done this a few times, more or less successfully, ususally less.
It is telling that Jan-Ole wrote his custom list box for Gravity, it probably spared him a lot of effort and made the UI experience better.
So either write something from scratch that just draws on the screen, or see if you can start using Qt already. It will be shipping in Symbian^3 onwards, and does install all the way back to S60 3rd edition.
Related
when wx.Dialog is created it can take any position on the computer screen and take any dimension if style allows. I am trying to build dialogs and confine them within the application window.
I am not sure if my question is clear, I guess an online imagine would be a good example of what I need to do.
in the current link, "spectra analysis" is an exact example of what I need.
http://cdn.altrn.tv/s/b80a7d76-3293-45f2-84dc-07ae136df1c6_1_full.gif
The UI in the image is using the Multiple Document Interface, and in wxPython on Windows you can get the same UI by using the wx.MDIParentFrame and wx.MDIChildFrame. However be sure this is what you need because most users do not like MDI and even Microsoft abandonded it in their applications long ago.
You don't want dialogs. You most likely want to look at the AUI widgets. There are the old wx.lib.aui widgets and the newer wx.lib.agw.aui widgets. I recommend the AGW version as it is written in pure Python and has had lots of enhancements done on it. I don't think the old wx.lib.aui widgets have had any attention in years.
See the wxPython demo for examples.
we're maintaining some Qt applications which are running on Linux and Windows desktops. Now, we want to make the applications more attractive by adding customized forms and reports for each customer or at least groups of customers. There may be 10 or more different versions needed.
As we come from Qt, we are wondering how to manage so many configurations and if there already is a framework/development system that would help us here. We were looking at QML/Qt Quick, WT Toolkit or even NC Reports for the reporting part.
Managing configurations and deriving different versions from a base is not a feature which is discussed or promoted.
There should be a clean distinction between Display and Application Logic (Model/View)
Nice would be a textual GUI description, which enables us to release changes in forms or reports without the need to reinstall the whole applications (like QML seems to have that)
Also nice would be a kind of report generator, that helps to create forms and reports for new customers without the need to code them (and so releases our core developers from boring work)
Has somebody experience with such kind of customer based configurations? It would be nice to have a hint what's the best way to do this in the Qt surrounding.
I know comparisons like http://qt-project.org/doc/qt-5.1/qtdoc/topics-ui.html#comparison, but the specific questions that I have are not mentioned.
best regards
I guess you need to differentiate applications in three aspects:
1. appearance - if the application only differs in button color, icon image and background themes, qt's style sheet is light and convenient, you can choose to deploy different qss file and load different ones without recoding. if the variance among customers concerns layouts or available widgets (some has buttons, some use combo boxes, .etc), style sheet cannot meet the requirement, QML seems promising in such case.
business logic - i'm not sure how "generating reports" differs for different customers, if the reports need to be printed, or saved as document, i don't think qt provides good toolkit (QXXXDocument is not suitable to generate / display large amount of document), html? maybe. And i agree with #hyde that loading different plugins or dynamic libraries can solve this.
What I learnt from 8 month qt:
Model/View Architecture is there, for example a tree view that we fill with voyage data. the data is gatheres from several db tables, so we have a good logical distinction.
We hadn't the time to work us into qml, so we stuck with qt designer. It's quite easy, so we're fine with that. Delivering changes in customer forms without recompile will be a feature for a bigger future rework.
Same with report generators...
I'm developing my first Windows desktop application and I'm trying to figure out what the best approach would be to create the program's GUI.
I know, I know... I feel stupid for asking considering the amount of data on the subject on SO. However most answers seem outdated and I'm not sure if they fit my specific project. Also tutorials for Windows 8 'metro apps' are clogging my Google search results, which is NOT what I'm looking for.
I use Visual Studio. I've followed tutorials. I have basic knowledge of C and Java and extensive experience with PHP. I'm excited to learn C++, so I'm not looking for GUIs to create a GUI (like WinForms). I also don't care about managed code and portability for now, especially since I'm trying to avoid dependencies (i.e. users having to install .NET). As long as it runs smoothly on Vista and up, I'm happy.
The application
The software will teach basic physics to kids. I'd like to create a main area and a sidebar. The main area will feature a physics animation, say a bouncing ball, along with some Q&A. Users can zoom in to the animation to measure some stuff and answer the question. Users can track their progress in the sidebar. That's pretty much it.
What I've found so far
I'm getting a bit frustrated with MSDN. Most of their examples are given in four different languages (C#, C++, etc). I can't seem to get more than a bit of Hello World code from them.
I found a GDI API on MSDN and it seems like a good start for me. However I've read quite a few answers on SO saying creating layouts in pure C++ is really hard, that we're better of using frameworks like ATL and WTL. Since I'm also going to create (somewhat interactive) animations, I've wondered whether I should use gaming-targeted APIs like Direct2D.
Since all of this is new to me, and there are a lot of options, I don't know where to start for my particular application. Any tips would be greatly appreciated!
Using the raw Win32 API (no additional downloads or third-party helpers):
Here's a good primer (introduces dialog boxes, text boxes, buttons, etc): theForger's Win32 API Tutorial
And here's where you go from there (numeric up-downs, list boxes, combo boxes, tooltips, and more): Common Controls on MSDN. Most of these require you to #include <commctrl.h>.
I also found this to be a good resource that covered what the other two didn't: Win32 Developer - Window Assets
But the Win32 API doesn't seem like it does exactly what you want. A physics app for kids should have a more visual GUI than the API can provide. Good luck, though!
If you're ok with adding additional Frameworks, I'd suggest looking at Qt.
It allows to create the GUI from code only, has a good structure, and has an Interface for 2D drawing, if required.
If you are concerned about dependencies, you only have to include the Qt DLLs to your executables; no installation is required for the user.
To get started, see my (old) tutorial "Lessons in Windows API Programming".
But you really need a good book, such as edition 5 or earlier of Charles Petzold's classic "Programming Windows".
The problem with latest edition is that it's for C# and .NET, with Charles grabbing the tail of the "new way" at just the wrong time…
Disclaimer: I haven't checked the details of edition numbers.
Using the Windows API is the simplest, but producing advanced GUIs can take a very long time. Microsoft Foundation Class is a way to make the Windows API more user friendly and OOP. Does anyone have any experience with MFC?
Why not use some 2D C++ game engine, like HGE: http://hge.relishgames.com/overview.html.
I'm designing a MFC app in which I'd like to have a grid with 2 coloumns : both editable in which the user will input data and the app will get notified about it. The number of rows can be increased/decreased by the user as he wants - What would be the ideal MFC control to use for this kind of requirement ?
This is my first time designing a MFC app , so dont mind if it sounds too noobish :)
It's not a noobish question. Actually you have encountered a problem which bugs every MFC developer since 15 years: The MFC library does not have a built-in Grid Control. And a kind of Grid Control is what you are looking for, I guess. As far as I'm aware of, it is not possible to edit two columns in a CListCtrl. Only the first column, the "Label", can be edited.
For a Grid control you have to look for appropriate Third-Party tools which can be added to your projects, for instance as ActiveX controls. (I remember that the old Visual Studio 6 came with an "MS FlexGrid" which you could add with the component gallery to the project, but I've never worked with it, so I don't know if it's a good choice. But perhaps enough for your purpose.) Most third-party Grid controls require license fees but here is one (quite powerful) grid for free (at least free of fees but not of a license):
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/miscctrl/gridctrl.aspx
(or google by "MFC Grid Control" or something like that. I think there will be more free grids.)
We currently maintain a suit of MFC applications that are fairly well designed, however the user interface is beginning to look tired and a lot of the code is in need quite a bit of refactoring to tidy up some duplication and/or performance problems. We make use of quite a few custom controls that handle all their own drawing (all written using MFC).
Recently I've been doing more research into Qt and the benefits it provides (cross-platform and supports what you might call a more "professional" looking framework for UI development).
My question is - what would be the best approach to perhaps moving to the Qt framework? Does Qt play nice with MFC? Would it be better to start porting some of our custom controls to Qt and gradually integrate more and more into our existing MFC apps? (is this possible?).
Any advice or previous experience is appreciated.
In my company, we are currently using Qt and are very happy with it.
I personnally never had to move a MFC-app into using the Qt framework, but here is something which might be of some interest for you :
Qt/MFC Migration Framework
Qt/MFC Migration Framework
It's part of Qt-Solutions, so this means you'll have to buy a Qt license along with a Qt-Solutions license. (edit: not any more)
I hope this helps !
(This doesn't really answer your specific questions but...)
I haven't personally used Qt, but it's not free for commercial Windows development.
Have you looked at wxWindows which is free? Nice article here. Just as an aside, if you wanted a single code base for all platforms, then you may have to migrate away from MFC - I am pretty sure (someone will correct if wrong) that MFC only targets Windows.
One other option would be to look at the Feature Pack update to MFC in SP1 of VS2008 - it includes access to new controls, including the Office style ribbon controls.
It's a tricky problem, and I suspect that the answer depends on how much time you have. You will get a much better result if you port your custom controls to Qt - if you use the QStyle classes to do the actual drawing then you'll end up with theme-able code right out of the box.
In general, my advice would be to bite the bullet and go the whole way at once. Sure, it might take longer, but the alternative is to spend an age trying to debug code that doesn't quite play ball, and end up writing more code to deal with minor incompatibilities between the two systems (been there, done that).
So, to summarise, my advice is to start a branch and rip out all your old MFC code and replace it with Qt. You'll get platform independence (almost) for free, and while it will take a while, you'll end up with a much nicer product at the end of it.
One final word of warning: make sure you take the time to understand the "Qt way of doing things" - in some cases it can be quite different to the MFC approach - the last thing you want to do is to end up with MFC-style Qt code.
I have lead a team doing this kind of thing before (not MFC to QT but the principles should work).
First we documented the dialogs and what their inputs, controls and outputs were. Also, we create several test cases especially for any clever logic inside the GUI.
Sometimes we had to refactor some business logic to provide a clean interface the GUIs but this is the way it should have been done in the first place tbh.
Now we had a list of GUIs, inputs, outputs, tests and an interface that the encapsulated GUI had to match.
We began, project by project, to create equivilant GUIs to the old ones. Once we did that we could slot the GUI in where the old one was, rebuild and test it. At first we tripped a lot but we soon worked out the common errors and fixed them. We navigated (I think) 612 dialogs although there was a team of about a dozen of us working on it.