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by Alan Knowles.
Original Post: app.Builder.js - First release
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Basically Glade on steriods. (and it needs a good name!!)
What?
Well Glade the UI builder is great for what it does, however app.Builder.js attempts to solve a few roadblocks in Glade
Moving stuff around is klumsy - no drag drop - It's not very good for prototyping layouts...
It's limited in what widgets can be added
Coding (when used as an Ajunta addon) is just downright messy.
It's difficult to extend/modify (and in some cases next to impossible)
Adding additional properties to widgets is difficult
Information is often hidden from display (how many clicks to find out what signals are connected)
There is no 'run it and see' option.
So what makes this different..?
It's all done in Javascript - using a tree like structure (and it's fully self hosting) - the application is used to modify it'self.
It uses GObject Introspection. which solves a number of issues
All available properties can be set (and quickly listed, with documentation)
how widget's can be packed, can be determined from introspection of the methods.
all signals are available, and stubs are created for you to start implementing.
Making extra widgets to the application is just a matter of editing files (eventually a UI will enable you to pick from a list of available Introspection elements... )
You can build web Applications (using toolkits like RooJS) - ExtJS, Moo etc. could be easily added..
It should be quite easy to build Clutter applications...
Do I need to know anything to use it.
Yes, one of the core concepts behind the builder is understanding XObject, a simple Javascript wrapper around GObjects that enables you to create a JSON like tree, and XObject will turn your tree into an application.
Key features of the XObject are
xtype - the name of the GObject (eg. Gtk.Window)
packing - the pack property, can be a string (comma seperated indicating how an element is packed to it's parent)
id - all objects can have ID's you can fetch any object using this.get('the_id') as long as it's a child of the current element. To look up the tree, use a '.' at the start, or to start at the top of the tree use '/', eg. this.get('/Window') get's you the window. this.get('/Window.toolbar') get's you the first toolbar in the window.
el - when an element is created, the GObject is always stored in this.el
|pipe - properties - currently the editor uses '|' as a prefix to indicate the value is raw Javascript (eg. a function or Value, that when used should not be quoted as if it was a string.
What state is it in?
Well, It's self editing.. - The application is used to create it's self, just create a new Gtk Project, and point it at the Sample directory, and you can edit the current codebase. (copying it to the Builder directory when you have a stable build)
What's to do...
Quite a few tweaks.. It works, but could do with more time in polishing the interface. My personal goal is to save time using it as a productivity tool, for development. Which is basically where it's at..
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