Hi Felipe,

PLEASE STOP SPREADING FUD!

Regarding the wiki page...
http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Custom_Drawn_Interface

[if you don't like harsh language - stop reading now]

"fpGUI acts as an unnecessary intermediary layer between the LCL and the platform, which makes the development harder. It is also not part of the Lazarus code base, uses a different version control system and has different versions which would need to be synchronized."

There are so much non relevant information in your above statement. I simply removed those, but you keep undoing my changes (eg: using a different source code management system - what the fuck has that got to do with the CustomDrawn lcl backend or fpGUI!!).

Then you also make FALSE statements like "it's harder to use" - based on what proof or research????

"it's not part of Lazarus code base" - well neither is Qt, GTK1, GTK2, Carbon or Cocoa. To what the hell is the point of mentioning that, other that to make fpGUI look worse once again.

"different versions" - what is that got to do with anything? LCL has many versions and things often break between LCL versions. Qt, GTK2, Cocoa and Carbon also continue development - none sit around waiting for LCL. So once again, what is your point about mentioned that - other that again trying to put fpGUI in some bad light.

Then you make other false statements via a screenshot. I lovely picture of a LCL form with a clock. But you forgot to mention (purposely) that LCL doesn't have the ability to actually paint that clock as-is. The clock face is "faked" - it is a PNG image painted as the background. ONLY the clock hands are truly painted by the LCL-CustomDrawn TCanvas methods. I simply placed a description to the image explaining what is actually painted by the all wonderful LCL-CustomDrawn widgetset, yet that description was once again removed by you. Alternatively you should have mentioned that to be able to draw anti-aliased lines, radial gradient etc, use a more advanced graphics backend like BGRABitmap or AggPas.

And every time you undo one of my changes, you modify the fpGUI comparison to make it sound worse and worse. If I'm not allowed to fix your falsified LCL+CustomDawn vs fpGUI comparison table, then rather remove that table complete. I don't write in the fpGUI website that LCL-CustomDrawn is crap, so why must you do it about fpGUI!

Get over yourself and stop being so fucken childish! Grow-up!

If you don't like my comparison you can create another one and I will make a link to it in the top of the section.

The table is about the LCL interface for fpGUI which has no maintainers against the LCL interface for CustomDrawn, it is a FAQ for people which ask why I dropped work on the first to work on the second, so I am completely lost as to why you speak like if it was a comparison of fpGUI against LCL-CustomDrawn. It is not.

Then you also make FALSE statements like "it's harder to use" - based on what proof or research????

It is not written that it is harder to use, it is written that it is harder to develop with 2 codebases instead of 1 and it is 100% correct based on my experience and I know what I am talking about since I wrote most of the code of both interfaces.

"it's not part of Lazarus code base" - well neither is Qt, GTK1, GTK2, Carbon or Cocoa. To what the hell is the point of mentioning that, other that to make fpGUI look worse once again.

There is nothing written about fpGUI there unless absolutely indispensable as it is not about it. It is about LCL-fpGUI against LCL-CustomDrawn, it is a FAQ for people which ask why I dropped LCL-fpgui in favor of LCL-CustomDrawn.

And yes, being 100% in the Lazarus codebase is a major plus for LCL-CustomDrawn.

Yes, those changing versions are a major problem and this is yet another issue which is fixed by LCL-CustomDrawn =)

If the comparison was LCL-CustomDrawn against LCL-Gtk3 I would cite the exact same thing. Gtk3 has versioning issues. LCL-CustomDrawn does not have.

Then you make other false statements via a screenshot. I lovely picture of a LCL form with a clock. But you forgot to mention (purposely) that LCL doesn't have the ability to actually paint that clock as-is.

Has this topic anything at all to do with the original one? So what that the background in a PNG? If I wanted I would create a full TCanvas or LazCanvas version, but I am just busy improving the Android support. Please stop spreading false FUD that the LCL can't draw this.

so why must you do it about fpGUI!

!? fpGUI is not on the topic. It is about the LCL interface for fpGUI. Nothing here is said about fpGUI unless relevant for the widgetset comparison as it is not on the topic.

Ah and last thing: You are not the only one pissed off. I am pissed off that you came in the last week to the Lazarus mailling list again and again only to promote fpGUI and bash the LCL.

While I am not against citing it if it absolutely on the topic (like someone that desperately wants small binaries), you crossed the line these last few days.

I realize, it is not my "war", but a few comments.

Personally I am not using either of them. I do definitely not have a favourite.
And I would definitely like to see both of them growing.

I think the problem starts with not differentiating between fpgui and fpgui LCL

Below is from memory. apologies, if any is outdated or incorrect.

fpgui is a self standing developing tool, which takes a different approach on how an application is put together. It might be possible to compare fpgui against the Lazurus IDE+LCL. But I see little point in comparing fpgui against a single laz-widgetset (unless you also compare all the laz-WS against each other)

fpgui-LCL is what can be compared (similar target custom drawn stuff in Lazarus)

And well, about fpgui-LCL some of that is true: it appears to have low amount of maintenance (there was some, but it seems to *currently* have less work put to it than the CustomDrawn)
And yes, (AFAIK) it requires the extra download of the fpgui sources and setting up the path. That is not 1 to 1 comparable with the need of gtk2 being installed.

The need of synchronization exist for most widgetset. even the w32 WS needs updates (e.g vista aero). But because it is well maintained, those changes are made in the WS code.
If fpgui-LCL was equally well maintained, it should have all the IFDEF to work with a wide range of fpgui versions.

However "extra layer" is probably misleading. The difference is that with fpgui the codebase is split into fpgui-LCL and fpgui.

Nothing about this is "unnecessary" (in that I am with Graeme)

Then you also make FALSE statements like "it's harder to use" - based on what proof or research????

Well, true: it does not "make the development harder"

The correct description would be: "It requires one or two extra steps to be installed" (no judgement on how hard or easy that may be) Once installed, that does no longer matter.

"it's not part of Lazarus code base" - well neither is Qt, GTK1, GTK2, Carbon or Cocoa. To what the hell is the point of mentioning that, other that to make fpGUI look worse once again.

Neither of them are pascal units, that need to be compiled, and neither need to setup include pathes

And if you *install* lazarus, they are usually installed as dependencies (well not all at the same time, but one is usually present)

Graeme Geldenhuys wrote

Hi Felipe, PLEASE STOP SPREADING FUD! Regarding the wiki page... http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Custom_Drawn_Interface

[...]

And every time you undo one of my changes

If the wiki page is describing a project that he is actively working on, including reasons why he's made certain design and management decisions, I think it's his business entirely what goes in there and what he deletes/reverts *provided* that it doesn't harm the Lazarus/LCL/FPC project as a whole.

If it were presented as a fettled comparison of finished code that would be a different matter- I'm sure he would have invited your opinion, and that somebody would have objected if the conclusions were inaccurate or the overall page misleading.

Finally, I suggest that everybody consider whether a public mailing list is the best place to air this sort of thing. Apart from what it does to the project, I'd certainly not express myself in those terms lest one of my bosses or one of our customers was reading it.

That was me. I was slightly unhappy that fpGUI was raised when I'd already pointed out that I only wanted to use standard components, and I believe I made my point adequately in response.

Thanks Martin. There are many ways Felipe could have done a comparison in a more friendly and neutral manner - which I and others would have been perfectly fine with. But what really got on my nerves is that every time he reverted my (neutral and fair) changes, he would at the same time add even more FUD. So things progressively sounded worse and worse! Damn childish!

I just quoted one paragraph, but there were many such paragraphs and many more examples.

- lcl-fpgui unmaintained and abandoned: I and others occasionally send patches. Progress is slow, but improvements are implement gradually (time permitting). That is different to unmaintained or abandoned software.
- LCL-CustomDrawn is used in commercial / business environments. Yeah right, the state it is in now, no business would touch it with a 10 foot pole. It's Alpha state Felipe! Yes Felipe, you are the proud daddy of your creation, but please don't over inflate its current state and abilities. Not even all features or controls or platforms are implemented yet.
- False advertising with the faked image - bloating the non-existent features.
- Revision control suddenly being a major obstacle in using a LCL widgetset. Since when has that stopped any developer or company from using a project, tool, framework etc.
- Majorly inflating what is necessary to support new platforms. My description was perfectly accurate - yes Felipe, I also know the LCL widgetset code and definitely also know what is required for fpGUI and LCL-fpGUI to support new platforms.
- Looking at the revision history of lcl/interface/fpgui it is definitely not clear-cut that Felipe was the major contributor either. Maybe if you only judge my amount of commits (excluding patches applied by him from other developers), but not by amount of actual code changes. Yes Felipe, Git (the oh so difficult revision control system) can report on code change statistics too, not just simple commit log history.
- Comparing backend API's, suddenly only fpGUI is not possible to accommodate the LCL API, but my miracles Qt, GTK1, GTK2, Carbon and Cocoa are. Wow.
- fpGUI can't do anti-aliased text. What rubbish, it had that ability since years
- He says he is only comparing LCL-fpGUI, not fpGUI itself. Yet every topic in the table specifically compared 'fpGUI' (not LCL-fpGUI) to 'LCL-CustomDrawn'.

... just to name a few (but still not all).

As long as he continues his childish behaviour, I'll treat him like a child.

Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote

That was me. I was slightly unhappy that fpGUI was raised when I'd already pointed out that I only wanted to use standard components, and I believe I made my point adequately in response.

Quoting what you said: "...but even with a manual strip the best I can do with Lazarus/FPC is pushing 3Mb."

This was a bit vague, so I thought I would comment. But once you mentioned your intension that it was something specific to LCL only, I did not comment further in that topic.

If the comparison was LCL-CustomDrawn against LCL-Gtk3 I would cite the exact same thing. Gtk3 has versioning issues.

Is this a typo or is there active work on the GTK3 front?

R.

Reimar Grabowski hat am 27. M?rz 2012 um 17:27
geschrieben:

No one has started it yet.

Mattias
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LazClock has buttons and labels. LazClock is not *fake* at all, and it is not just a form with 1 image. It is a real clock which runs via TTimer, the pointers are drawn using TCanvas, the buttons are real, the clock is a TCustomControl which paints itself inside a TNotebook, and the second page of the notebook has a timer. It is pretty complex and shows that a lot of different things are working.

Please check for yourself in lazarus-ccr/applications/lazclock

Note that LCL-Cocoa can't yet run this application but LCL-CustomDrawn can in all of its backends (TTimer is backend dependent and implemented by all backends). This tells a lot of how much this widgetset advanced and it is a very good demo. And it wasn't even created as a LCL-CustomDrawn demo, I created it for the FP Application Suite like lazeyes and other apps.

For the rest. lets try to see the best in each other and come up, with a neutral text.

Rethinking now I think that we should just kill the comparison completely. This entire discussion is a huge waste of time.

Andrew prepared bindings, gtk3 ws will start after 1.0 is released.

zeljko
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Felipe Monteiro de Carvalho wrote

Rethinking now I think that we should just kill the comparison completely. This entire discussion is a huge waste of time.

Yes, please do.

Graeme Geldenhuys wrote

Yes, please do.

As soon as Sven unblocks it.

Op 27 maart 2012 22:02 heeft Felipe Monteiro de Carvalho het volgende geschreven:

The block expires automatically at 15:08 UTC 28 March. So you get some more time to cool down. ;-)

Vincent

Felipe Monteiro de Carvalho wrote

Note that LCL-Cocoa can't yet run this application but LCL-CustomDrawn can in all of its backends (TTimer is backend dependent and implemented by all backends). This tells a lot of how much this widgetset advanced and it is a very good demo.

So if I create a demo which will run on LCL-Cocoa (for example I will implement TListView or Drag and Drop demo) but will not run at the same time on LCL-CustomDrawn it will show something to others?

Best regards,
Paul Ishenin

Paul Ishenin wrote

So if I create a demo which will run on LCL-Cocoa (for example I will implement TListView or Drag and Drop demo) but will not run at the same time on LCL-CustomDrawn it will show something to others?

:-)

Felipe should just quit trying to compare LCL-CustomDrawn to everything else - it's a pointless exercise. And no Felipe, I'm not just picking on your LCL-CustomDrawn work here. I can compare LCL-Win32 to LCL-GTK2 widgetset too, and there will be differences as well - but what's the point, none of the LCL widgetsets will ever have 100% equal features or functionality.

Huh O.o

Wikis are fascinating... I just looked at the comparison by you to build my own opinion about the text, but it seems that this must have introduced some look... interesting.

Note: This means it was not on purpose ;)

Regards,
Sven

Ah, this isn't me ^^

My nick is PascalDragon. Also the user reads "Swen" (note the "w") not "Sven" ;)

Regards,
Sven