Shouldn’t be too hard to build a framework that loads a GUI definition and auto-binds UI events to functions according to a naming convention. I wouldn’t be surprised if there isn’t already such a thing for Python.
I’m not sure the same approach would work today.
At some point it got anchors in the widgets so you could position it at a distance of another control or the window border (at least). The same effect can be done with layout managers and other tricks.
I've never heard of this or if I have, I don't remember it.
It's an open source IDE that's Delphi compatible. The author of the article is trying to make a Mac app.
* Downloads are from an ad-ridden SourceForge page.
* I download Lazarus I don't get a nice little Mac app... I get a folder full of stuff
* Starting the app, macOS tells me “lazarus” is damaged and can’t be opened. You should move it to the Trash.
* On the project screenshots page, ReactOS is shown before macOS and macOS screenshots are from a while ago.
Contrast that experience with... VSCodium, the open source community version of VSCode.
* Download is from GitHub, no ads.
* Downloads a disk image with a familiar pattern
* Drag the VSCodium app bundle to my Applications folder
* I get prompted if I want to open it as it's something downloaded... and VSCodium opens (slowly at first) -- up pops a message saying I've downloaded the x86 version by mistake and I should download the ARM64 version and there's a link to do it... downloading the correct version and it opens instantly.
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All of this to say... with any project, open source or proprietary there is a sense of native/correctly packaged for your OS that's obvious, and if a project doesn't do that I wonder if anyone is using it for that OS.
There are (at least) three ways to make a desktop application (Classic Windows Forms, XAML and other, more different XAML, for what used to be Metro/Windows Store apps). Not all functionality overlaps between them.
There are a plethora of (paid) custom controls which reimplement the wheel for all of those (because Microsoft didn't bundle in some elementary Windows controls)
That being said, I personally miss LightSwitch.
On Error Resume NextI still remember the envy when I found out Delphi developers were not subject to these silly restrictions, and their GUIs were always so colourful.
lysace•8mo ago
In the 90s, when you saw that a Windows app needed Visual Basic DLLs, you kind of knew that the app in question was very likely created by a complete amateur.
The best apps tended to be tiny and written in C by wizards.
pvg•8mo ago
lysace•8mo ago
rbanffy•8mo ago
lysace•8mo ago
tptacek•8mo ago
rbanffy•8mo ago
pvg•8mo ago
rbanffy•7mo ago
tptacek•8mo ago
guidedlight•8mo ago
It’s in that context, VB did really well. The thing that VB didn’t do well is scale due to language limitations, but for tiny apps it didn’t matter.
mattl•8mo ago
I was a VB developer for a few years. I'm trying to remember the name of the tool we used to bundle VB applications into a single binary. It wasn't a Microsoft tool.
lysace•8mo ago
That shipping sites like that should cause you to pay some kind of tax. Use that tax income to invest in software security.
mattl•8mo ago