Comments about gtk, Perl/Gtk (vs Tk)

[dov Orbotech Co IL]

Hello,

I finally got around to testing the new Perl/Gtk module. I have 
quite a lot of experience with Perl/Tk, and below are some
of my impressions as how they compare.

Here are my first impressions:

* I found the syntax of the Gtk named parameters much noiser and 
  verbose than necessary. Why use 
  
          GtkWindow::title =>	"hello world",
   
  when a simple 
  
          -title => "hello world"
	  
  would do just as well? I'm sure that the number of ambigious cases
  is very small.
  
* The callback parameter (signal::clicked) should not only take code
  references, but also array references, where the first element in
  the array indicates the function to call, and the rest of the 
  parameters are passed to the function when it is called in the 
  callback. That's the way it's done in Tk.
  
* In Tk a parent creates it's children. In syntax for the same 
  operation in Gtk is much noiser. Compare

        Gtk::Widget->new("GtkButton",
			 GtkWidget::parent => $window,
                         ) 
  to:
  
        $window->Button()

* A gtk comment, which might be due to my limited understanding of
  gtk: I don't like the fact that the order of showing the widgets
  changes the size in which they are displayed. Why don't the
  containers automatically adjust themself to contain their children?
  
  E.g. there is a big difference in the "simple" program if 
  $window->show() is executed before the GtkButton is added to it.
  

* I couldn't get gdk_imlib work from within Gtk. I don't know what
  went wrong, but whatever I did, I always get:
  
    Can't locate object method "init" via package "Gtk::Gdk::ImlibImage" 
    at gdkimlib.pl line 5.
  
  THis happened, even though extension.xsh contains:
    
  BOOT:
  {
  callXS (boot_Gtk__Gdk__ImlibImage, cv, mark);
  }

  And the compilation seems to have been ok.
  
  The use of gdk_imlib is really the major cause of my interest in
  Gtk at the moment. I would like to create a new widget class that
  I call a Zoomvas that allows automatic zooming with callbacks
  for drawing what is actually zoomed. 
  
But alltogether I'm very impressed with gtk and I am sure I will be 
using it a lot in the years to come. Thanks a lot!

Regards,
--
                                                                    ___
Dov Grobgeld                        | Email: dov@orbotech.co.il    /+  \  PCB
Algorithms Department, Orbotech     | Phone: +972-8-9423882        \  +/  AOI
Yavne 70651, Israel                 | Fax:   +972-8-9423775       __| |
               Disclaimer: All views above are mine alone.        ____|