[wxPython-dev] Some info on the ongoing SoC XRCed project

[Kevin Ollivier]

Hi Roman,

On Jul 5, 2007, at 4:33 PM, Roman Rolinsky wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> For those who are interested in XRCed refactoring progress, I will be
> putting more information on-line in a short period. I'm currently busy
> preparing an alpha version which can be actually  
> tested^H^H^H^H^H^Hused
> by brave souls who like to try the bleeding-edge stuff.
>
> In addition to the initial wxPyWiki page XRCed Refactoring Project I
> registered a blog on the "unofficial" planet-soc site:
> http://planet-soc.com/blog/259 , where you can find some  
> screenshots of
> the new interface and short notes.

BTW, I really do like the new tool pane, I think it gives the app a  
more modern look and gives the user a better idea of what the  
controls will look like in the app. :-)

> Basically what I was doing in June was reorganizing the old code to be
> more MVP-like, and implementing the new class structure for the  
> plug-in
> components in parallel. Unfortunately I had some health problems in  
> the
> first week of June which had made this a slow start (I've managed to
> catch a cold when it was around 30 degreeC here!). I was also  
> finishing
> a paper for a conference at that time, but that's another story :)

[snip]

> Basically, everything looks similar to the traditional version at the
> moment: there is still a tree control with pull-down menus and a tool
> panel which is now separated from the main frame and organized in  
> pages,
> with bigger icons (actually screenshots of the real interface  
> elements).
> The main difference is that all interface elements are now defined  
> using
> so-called component plug-ins, which are loaded from plugin
> director(y)(ies) scanned by XRCed at start-up. I'm putting details  
> about
> this on wxPyWiki.

Nice! I'll be looking forward to that, so I can add SizedControls and  
wxWebKit in there. (The latter will have to be able to install itself  
into XRCed when the user installs the control, I imagine that would  
be possible?)

> The tool panel is inspired by the OSX Interface Builder, it's just a
> wxToolbook with wxPanels and wxBitmapButtons. I'm planning to try  
> to use
> AUI to make all panels docking in the future.
>
> The test window is a little different too, it is 'persistent' for
> non-top-level controls, so should not flicker and steal focus from the
> main window. Another new feature is the possibility to test individual
> interface elements.

Also nice! :-) BTW, I was wondering, how hard would it be to drag and  
drop controls into the test window? I think it would be a very nice  
feature to have.

I also like the idea of the AUI-style panes. But if it's not too much  
trouble, please make the panes in a way that you could switch to  
another docking framework later. (May not be a big deal since you're  
already taking an MVP-centric design, of course.) I'm still planning  
to finish my Mac-friendly docking framework that can remember pane  
info even when its undocked, and eventually once it's complete I'd  
like to have XRCed using it.

> Auto-refreshing and highlighting are not yet
> refactored, neither are Locate and code generation commands.
>
> The standard component plug-ins are defined using plugins/core.py  
> file.
> I will provide a working example of a custom component plug-in soon.

Thanks for all your work on this, it looks very exciting. :-)

Kevin

> Please do leave comments on the blog or post here if you think  
> something
> can be made in a better way, it's the time to influence the  
> development
> of the new version now.
>
> Thanks for your attention,
>
> Roman
>
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