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XDC2012: Programming languages for X application developmentXDC2012: Programming languages for X application developmentPosted Oct 4, 2012 11:29 UTC (Thu) by njwhite (subscriber, #51848)Parent article: XDC2012: Programming languages for X application development
Tcl/Tk is the only language I've found GUI programming pleasant in. It really is superb, and I'm suprised more people don't use it. Cross-platform, stable, attractive, and very simply but powerfully expressive.
Is there a reason (other than tcl isn't taught in schools much) that people know of for its (comparative) lack of usage?
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XDC2012: Programming languages for X application development Posted Oct 4, 2012 11:46 UTC (Thu) by juliank (subscriber, #45896) [Link]
Uglyness. Tk does not integrate into a desktop at all.
XDC2012: Programming languages for X application development Posted Oct 4, 2012 11:57 UTC (Thu) by njwhite (subscriber, #51848) [Link]
> Uglyness
Tk 8.5 on my Debian is at least as attractive as GTK applications, to me.
> Tk does not integrate into a desktop at all
If one uses ttk widgets it will use the desktop theme, AFAIK. But I've never bothered with it, because regular widgets in Tk 8.5 are quite pretty, and not very different to the default widget styles of Qt and Gtk.
XDC2012: Programming languages for X application development Posted Oct 4, 2012 16:18 UTC (Thu) by intgr (subscriber, #39733) [Link]
> Tk 8.5 on my Debian is at least as attractive as GTK applications, to me.
Are we talking about the same Tk that appears when you run gitk, hgk or use Tkinter in Python? Because every time I do, I feel like I'm going through a time machine, decades back, to the days of Motif.
And they still have no grid widget (list widget with multiple columns), so it has to be emulated via multiple single-column list widgets. Srsly?
XDC2012: Programming languages for X application development Posted Oct 4, 2012 18:13 UTC (Thu) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] Tk, in its default configuration, does look old, but I don't think ugly. I don't think gitk's interface is any uglier than those of my other desktop tools like Firefox, claws-mail, etc. And the whole point of Tcl/Tk is that it's easy to build up "megawidgets" from simpler widgets so you don't *need* a multicolumn list box. Once the code is written to make a megawidget, you just use it. If you don't like writing your own widget code, there are plenty of libraries (eg, BWidget) that have all the widgets you'd ever need.
XDC2012: Programming languages for X application development Posted Oct 4, 2012 18:24 UTC (Thu) by juliank (subscriber, #45896) [Link]
Old = Ugly here. Tk's look (motif ?) is older than me, so it feels totally alien to me.
XDC2012: Programming languages for X application development Posted Oct 4, 2012 22:25 UTC (Thu) by njwhite (subscriber, #51848) [Link]
> Tk's look (motif ?) is older than me, so it feels totally alien to me
I really feel like we must be talking past each other somehow. Here are screenshots from a couple of little GUI programs I wrote recently, with Debian's Tk 8.5, doing nothing fancy whatsoever:
Motif may well be older than me too; I really don't think Tk looks particularly dated. Tk 8.4 did, 'cos it didn't use proportional fonts (at least by default), but Tk 8.5 looks as modern as anything else to me. And as I mentioned above, it's really nice to code in.
XDC2012: Programming languages for X application development Posted Oct 4, 2012 22:53 UTC (Thu) by juliank (subscriber, #45896) [Link]
It looks a bit better than previously (it was darker previously IIRC), I'd say it looks OK. But it is easily recognizable as a non-native toolkit in a desktop, whereas all other major toolkits (GTK+, Qt, and wxWidgets if you like) are not (as they render using either GTK+ or Qt). What it needs are stuff like rounded corners and some more visual hints, like coloring of active tabs.
I want my graphical applications to look great, not OK. They a sort of a distraction from the main part of the screen content, the terminal. That's why I don't use stuff like Tk, Xfce, or Enlightenment. They're all ugly and inconsistent compared to the wonderful GNOME 3 desktop (GNOME 3 has other important problems though, like crashes on user switch).
XDC2012: Programming languages for X application development Posted Oct 5, 2012 13:28 UTC (Fri) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] They're all ugly and inconsistent compared to the wonderful GNOME 3 desktop Ah, I see. You're being ironic. Seriously... "ugly" is absolutely in the eye of the beholder and I find Tk apps no more ugly than Qt or gtk+ ones.
XDC2012: Programming languages for X application development Posted Oct 5, 2012 21:51 UTC (Fri) by sramkrishna (guest, #72628) [Link]
You should file a bug on that.
Tk look Posted Oct 5, 2012 12:32 UTC (Fri) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] Ugh. Ugliness is in the eye in the beholder, definitely. Why do people think that white backgrounds are only for text documents?Also, there are varying degrees of ugliness. I have deduced through various experiences that my aesthetic sense is a bit advanced for a developer, but completely backwards for regular people. The screenshots you posted are (no offense meant) definitely in developer-only land: function over form.
Tk look Posted Oct 5, 2012 12:38 UTC (Fri) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link] Why do people think that white backgrounds are only for text documents?Because large expanses of white background on emitted-light display are eye-stabby in much the same way that a thinly-overcast sky is.
Tk look Posted Oct 6, 2012 9:16 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] I disagree. That might have been the case ages ago with CRTs, but TFTs have made it tolerable and even desirable. My browser window fills the whole screen and the web pages in it are usually large expanses of white, including right now LWN.net. It is not uncomfortable at all, and making the thin control stripes (menu and buttons) a little bit darker does not change the overall picture.In fact, darker backgrounds on web pages decrease readability. I find white text on a dark background particularly nasty: after reading such a page I see dark spots everywhere for a minute or so. I have configured my terminal windows to be black on white too and now live in a bright, sunny world.
Tk look Posted Oct 10, 2012 15:58 UTC (Wed) by Tet (subscriber, #5433) [Link] TFTs have made it tolerable and even desirableNope. Still intolerable and undesirable here. TFTs have made it not quite as bad as before, but I still prefer light text on a dark background 90% of the time. How anyone can work with a dark on light terminal is beyond me. But hey, everyone's personal preferences are different.
Tk look Posted Oct 6, 2012 7:13 UTC (Sat) by dirtyepic (subscriber, #30178) [Link]
> Why do people think that white backgrounds are only for text documents?
Everyone knows text documents should be chunky white text on a blue background. Those white backgrounds just give you screen burn.
Tk look Posted Oct 6, 2012 10:48 UTC (Sat) by wazoox (subscriber, #69624) [Link]
Thank you. I've always thought that the one true color for term windows is the traditional IRIX winterm appearance ( example here: http://www.guidebookgallery.org/pics/gui/system/utilities... )
XDC2012: Programming languages for X application development Posted Oct 6, 2012 6:55 UTC (Sat) by dirtyepic (subscriber, #30178) [Link]
Sorry, that screams Windows 98 to me. It's just boxy and generic with no visual variety. Though maybe it looks better when framed inside the standard window decorations.
XDC2012: Programming languages for X application development Posted Oct 7, 2012 19:50 UTC (Sun) by Seegras (subscriber, #20463) [Link]
Totally. Even the code looks ugly.
Anyway: The problem here is, this beast comes with _another_ totally different look and feel.
What's needed is a consistent look & feel all over all applications, no matter what language they're written in. And the whole thing has to be theme-able, so I can change the look & feel of the whole desktop at the same time.
It's a big strength of Windows and MacOS that every application looks the same (apart from idiots taking pains "their" application looks different. They belong into the user interface hall of shame). But it's a big strength of the X11 toolkits (Gtk, Qt, even Athena) that the look of all the applications written in them is theme-able globally. You don't want to loose that, you want to expand it over different toolkits.
XDC2012: Programming languages for X application development Posted Oct 8, 2012 18:28 UTC (Mon) by jond (subscriber, #37669) [Link]
> What's needed is a consistent look & feel all over all applications, no
> matter what language they're written in. And the whole thing has to be > theme-able, so I can change the look & feel of the whole desktop at the > same time.
We have that, now. You can write GTK apps in C, C++, Java, Perl, Python… You can write Qt apps in C++, Java, Perl, Python… (not sure about C). The problem is we have it more than once :)
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