Re: Developing applications

["Ross McFarland" <rwmcfa1 neces com>]

Jim Donoghue said:
> 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?

gtk2-perl is pretty stable at this point and will soon be going 1.0. (there's
1 more sizable issue to be resolved that would only be encountered in very
rare situations where you're using evals and dies in ways that you probably
shouldn't, we're looking at fixing it so that you can use them in ways that
are 'normal' as would be expected, sorry got sidetracked.)

if support for the developers is an issue (free support on this list) then
you're more apt to get it with gtk2-perl. we try to answer questions about
either, but the currently active people on this list seem to know a lot more
about 2 than 1.

that being said if you have a working gtk-perl app that does what you want it
to then you won't gain all that much by porting to gtk2-perl. the good news is
that porting is pretty simple. the only major differences with respect to
porting between them are the text, list, and tree widgets which are much
better (my opinion) in gtk2(-perl).

advantages to gtk2-perl:
 - utf8 text
 - (i think) the mnemonic stuff is new and i'm a big fan of those (keyboard
shortcuts)
 - accessability (which includes mnemonics)
 - flexible type system.
 - new (and improved) text, list and tree widgets
 - glib and gtk are seperate (there are reasons this is very good)
 - extending existing widgets to make custom widgets in perl is nearly
trivial, it really really is.
 - there's more, but i need to do some real work today.

(on a side note look for this to become a faq entry in the near future, any
input/corrections/additional info welcome)

-rm