•Re: Re: Creating Tk Applications Graphically

[merlyn]

But applications designed like that usually feel to me the same way web pages feel that are done by "visual" layout programs. That is, when I move the lower-right window size box, it should get bigger or smaller, darn it!

If you lay out "logically" rather than "visually", you don't have any absolute pixels. Everything is just "left" or "right" or "above" other things, and when the main window is resized, everything is still like that. Pixel based layout tools are wrong for that.

Now, maybe you meant that you do a Photoshop layout, but only to generally figure out where things go, and then you reduce it to simple ->pack calls rather than absolute ->place calls or fixed sizes for all your widgets. But I'm not sure, so I'm raising the issue here.

[Popcorn Dave]

Actually for what I did, I wanted the absolute pixel placement. That worked out fine for me in that instance. However that's not to say I'd use that every time. I'd have to look at the app I was building.

I used that technique with the first Tk app I ever did, and the ability to place things at x-y coordinates was easier for me to deal with for what I did as I had some graphics in my main window. I used Photoshop since I was more comfortable with it than Paint Shop Pro.

It worked for me, it might not for others. I only offered it as a suggestion as the o.p. seemed to be looking for an easy solution for laying out widgets in Tk.

[Anonymous Monk]

IMHO some of the best web site/UI designs are "pixel perfect" - don't forget stuff like having fixed size gifs (e.g. backgrounds) marry up to tables, etc.

[merlyn]

It's not a good design if it doesn't work on my cell phone, or a blind person's speaking browser, or is visible to the world's most important browsers (googlebot and to a lesser extent, scooter).

The web is not paper. Paper designers can't seem to get over this.

[jplindstrom]

It's not a good design if it doesn't work on my cell phone

A desktop-based web browser is one kind of usage scenario. A PDA/phone-based web browser is a different one in most cases.

This has to do with layout, but also with the amount of text to display, user needs, motives and expectations, how to navigate etc. Most likely, the usage scenario is too different to allow the same design to work in an optimal way in both scenarios.

So saying "it's not good" if one design cannot accomodate both scenarios is a tad simplistic IMHO. The problem is bigger than whether a layout is/should be pixel perfect or not.


/J

[eserte]

And to add: fonts have not the same extents on every system (even if it's the same font family), and internationalization may hit (label texts occupy more space in some languages). Issues which I often have to face from badly written Java, Gtk or Qt GUI applications.