Re: Developing applications

[Chas Owens <alas widomaker com>]

Quoting Jim Donoghue <jim smithy com>:
> Hello all,
>
> We have a 'database application framework' we created to develop
> in-house financial and marketing applications. This was developed with
> gtk-perl and currently runs on RedHat 7.2. It is in a 'beta' state
> right now, we make changes to it now and then. 
>
> Would it be advisable to convert this to gtk2-perl at this time? What
> is the current state of gtk2-perl?

It is approaching 1.0.  Porting for everthing except Gtk::Text, Gtk::CList,
Gtk::CTree, Gtk::List, and Gtk::Tree is generally as simple as s/Gtk/Gtk2/.
There are some changes around Gnome->init, but they are minor and those calls
should only appear once in your code anyways.  Gtk::Text is replaced by a much
more powerful widget named Gtk2::TextView.  The list and tree widgets have been
replaced with a MVC (Model, View, and Control) set of widgets:  Gtk2::ListStore
and Gtk2::TreeStore hold list and tree data respectivly and Gtk2::TreeView
displays the contents of a store (be it a list or tree).  There is also a new
helper module Gtk2::SimpleList that handles most of the basics for you if you
are not trying to do anything fancy.

Benefits to porting:
Anti-aliased text
better text widget
theme changes to Gnome2/Gtk2 will affect your app
active development on the library (nobody is really supporting gtk-perl now)

Drawbacks to porting
Major changes to text and list widgets
active development on the library (things sometimes change)
requires Gtk2 (default on RedHat 8 and 9)