[Caml-list] labltk vs lablgtk

[Caml-list] labltk vs lablgtk

[Henri Dubois-Ferriere]

Hi,

I need to write a gui front-end to a caml network simulator of mine. 
GUI-wise it should be standard fare (a few buttons, and menu, etc). 
The other property is that the GUI communicates with the simulator
over a socket, so I need event-driven I/O to be integrated with GUI event 
loop.

My instinct is to go with labltk, "because it's there", and it can handle 
file descriptor events pretty easily.

But since I'm going to live with this choice for quite a while, i'm 
wondering what are the broad pros/cons between labltk and lablgtk?
does anything stick out as being specific to one or the other?

Thanks to anyone who can reduce my caml-GUI ignorance in any way..

Henri DF

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Re: [Caml-list] labltk vs lablgtk

[Eric C. Cooper]

On Thu, Apr 10, 2003 at 04:00:58PM +0200, Henri Dubois-Ferriere wrote:
> [...] i'm wondering what are the broad pros/cons between labltk and
> lablgtk?  does anything stick out as being specific to one or the
> other?

Very subjectively, I found that labltk was simpler to code, at least
for simple GUIs.  The appearance is fairly clean and attractive
(especially if you override the default fonts), but looks somewhat
out-of-place in a more modern desktop environment.

I found lablgtk more complex to code, but it is more flexible and has
a richer set of ready-made components.  It is very attractive, and
(obviously) fits in well on a Gnome desktop.

-- 
Eric C. Cooper          e c c @ c m u . e d u

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Re: [Caml-list] labltk vs lablgtk

[Matt Gushee]

On Thu, Apr 10, 2003 at 04:00:58PM +0200, Henri Dubois-Ferriere wrote:
> 
> But since I'm going to live with this choice for quite a while, i'm 
> wondering what are the broad pros/cons between labltk and lablgtk?
> does anything stick out as being specific to one or the other?

Let's see ...

* Tk has a limited selection of widgets. From what you said of your
  project, it may well have all you need, but it is lacking a few things
  that people seem to expect to find in "modern" GUI toolkits: spin
  buttons, paned windows, tabbed notebooks, tree displays ...

* Last time I checked (several months ago), GTK was considered to be
  less-than-production-quality on Windows and MacOS, whereas Tk has been
  in use on those platforms for a long time.

* (My impression is that) GTK has good Unicode support. Tk has had issues
  with i18n for some time. The latest versions may be up to par, but I'm
  not sure. Probably either would be fine for Western European
  languages; the problems I have heard of were mostly related to CJKV.

* If you need to use raster graphics, you should be aware that Tk only
  has built-in support for GIF and PBM/PGM/PPM/PNM file formats. I'm not
  sure, but I would assume that GTK supports JPEG, PNG, and other modern
  formats.

Hope that helps a bit.

-- 
Matt Gushee                 When a nation follows the Way,
Englewood, Colorado, USA    Horses bear manure through
mgushee@havenrock.com           its fields;
http://www.havenrock.com/   When a nation ignores the Way,
                            Horses bear soldiers through
                                its streets.
                                
                            --Lao Tzu (Peter Merel, trans.)

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Re: [Caml-list] labltk vs lablgtk

[scott]

On Thu, Apr 10, 2003 at 11:18:26AM -0600, Matt Gushee wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 10, 2003 at 04:00:58PM +0200, Henri Dubois-Ferriere wrote:
> > 
> > But since I'm going to live with this choice for quite a while, i'm 
> > wondering what are the broad pros/cons between labltk and lablgtk?
> > does anything stick out as being specific to one or the other?
> 
> Let's see ...
> 
[...]

> * (My impression is that) GTK has good Unicode support. Tk has had issues
>   with i18n for some time. The latest versions may be up to par, but I'm
>   not sure. Probably either would be fine for Western European
>   languages; the problems I have heard of were mostly related to
CJKV.

The new gtk (2) has good unicode support.  I'm not sure how that's
addressed in lablgtk (2).  Tk works with unicode, but labltk does
not.  It is possible to hack labltk to do this, but it's _very_ ugly
(trust me I've done it)

scott

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Re: [Caml-list] labltk vs lablgtk

[Henri Dubois-Ferriere]

thanks for all this valuable info.

one further question: is there an easy way to add file descriptor events
into lablgtk's event loop like with labltk?
i looked around but didn't find any examples/documentation of
this anywhere.

thanks

henri

On Thu, 10 Apr 2003, scott wrote:

> On Thu, Apr 10, 2003 at 11:18:26AM -0600, Matt Gushee wrote:
> > On Thu, Apr 10, 2003 at 04:00:58PM +0200, Henri Dubois-Ferriere wrote:
> > >
> > > But since I'm going to live with this choice for quite a while, i'm
> > > wondering what are the broad pros/cons between labltk and lablgtk?
> > > does anything stick out as being specific to one or the other?
> >
> > Let's see ...
> >
> [...]
>
> > * (My impression is that) GTK has good Unicode support. Tk has had issues
> >   with i18n for some time. The latest versions may be up to par, but I'm
> >   not sure. Probably either would be fine for Western European
> >   languages; the problems I have heard of were mostly related to
> CJKV.
>
> The new gtk (2) has good unicode support.  I'm not sure how that's
> addressed in lablgtk (2).  Tk works with unicode, but labltk does
> not.  It is possible to hack labltk to do this, but it's _very_ ugly
> (trust me I've done it)
>
> scott
>
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> To unsubscribe, mail caml-list-request@inria.fr Archives: http://caml.inria.fr
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Re: [Caml-list] labltk vs lablgtk

[Henri Dubois-Ferriere]

mea culpa, i didn't do my homework completely.

looking at the gtk docs i found that

gdk_input_add

should be what i was asking for.

henri

On Thu, 10 Apr 2003, Henri Dubois-Ferriere wrote:

> thanks for all this valuable info.
>
> one further question: is there an easy way to add file descriptor events
> into lablgtk's event loop like with labltk?
> i looked around but didn't find any examples/documentation of
> this anywhere.
>
> thanks
>
> henri
>
> On Thu, 10 Apr 2003, scott wrote:
>
> > On Thu, Apr 10, 2003 at 11:18:26AM -0600, Matt Gushee wrote:
> > > On Thu, Apr 10, 2003 at 04:00:58PM +0200, Henri Dubois-Ferriere wrote:
> > > >
> > > > But since I'm going to live with this choice for quite a while, i'm
> > > > wondering what are the broad pros/cons between labltk and lablgtk?
> > > > does anything stick out as being specific to one or the other?
> > >
> > > Let's see ...
> > >
> > [...]
> >
> > > * (My impression is that) GTK has good Unicode support. Tk has had issues
> > >   with i18n for some time. The latest versions may be up to par, but I'm
> > >   not sure. Probably either would be fine for Western European
> > >   languages; the problems I have heard of were mostly related to
> > CJKV.
> >
> > The new gtk (2) has good unicode support.  I'm not sure how that's
> > addressed in lablgtk (2).  Tk works with unicode, but labltk does
> > not.  It is possible to hack labltk to do this, but it's _very_ ugly
> > (trust me I've done it)
> >
> > scott
> >
> > -------------------
> > To unsubscribe, mail caml-list-request@inria.fr Archives: http://caml.inria.fr
> > Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs FAQ: http://caml.inria.fr/FAQ/
> > Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners
> >
>
>
>
>
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Re: [Caml-list] labltk vs lablgtk

[Sven Luther]

On Thu, Apr 10, 2003 at 11:18:26AM -0600, Matt Gushee wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 10, 2003 at 04:00:58PM +0200, Henri Dubois-Ferriere wrote:
> > 
> > But since I'm going to live with this choice for quite a while, i'm 
> > wondering what are the broad pros/cons between labltk and lablgtk?
> > does anything stick out as being specific to one or the other?
> 
> Let's see ...
> 
> * Tk has a limited selection of widgets. From what you said of your
>   project, it may well have all you need, but it is lacking a few things
>   that people seem to expect to find in "modern" GUI toolkits: spin
>   buttons, paned windows, tabbed notebooks, tree displays ...
> 
> * Last time I checked (several months ago), GTK was considered to be
>   less-than-production-quality on Windows and MacOS, whereas Tk has been
>   in use on those platforms for a long time.
> 
> * (My impression is that) GTK has good Unicode support. Tk has had issues
>   with i18n for some time. The latest versions may be up to par, but I'm
>   not sure. Probably either would be fine for Western European
>   languages; the problems I have heard of were mostly related to CJKV.
> 
> * If you need to use raster graphics, you should be aware that Tk only
>   has built-in support for GIF and PBM/PGM/PPM/PNM file formats. I'm not
>   sure, but I would assume that GTK supports JPEG, PNG, and other modern
>   formats.

lablgtk2 does also support SVG graphics now, and the AA fonts are really
worth it.

Friendly,

Sven Luther

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