Re: GNAT for MS Visual Studio

[Michael Bode <m.g.bode@web.de>]

"Steve" <nospam_steved94@comcast.net> writes:

> It is "almost" what you get with GtkAda/Glade.  Every time I have attempted 
> the combination it has ended in frustration.
>
> I am working in a Windows environment.
>
> Every time I have attempted to use Glade to set up a GUI it starts out 
> looking really impressive... better than some of the other GUI IDE's.
>
> But then I find that the tool that is supposed to allow me to make changes 
> to the GUI after the initial setup, doesn't work on Windows.  Or I start 
> setting up windows, things start looking good, and then Glade crashes losing 
> all of my edits.

I'm using Glade/GtkAda on Linux and Windows. I have had maybe a
handfull of Glade crashes, not more than I have experienced with
Visual C++. I have to admit that my copy of VC++ is 10 years old, so I
hope they have heard of layout managers other than 'absolute
position' by now, haven't they? I tried to install VC++ 2003 a month
ago on Vista, but that did not work (installer told me VC++ is not
compatible with Vista). At least my GtkAda app does work on Vista with
only one annoyance: you have to either disable Aero or the WIMP engine
to get menus working properly.

BTW: I don't use Gate but libglade. The glade file for my app has
about 21000 lines, loads in under 2s on my Thinkpad R51.

> When I first tried using Glade on Windows the file dialogs were far from 
> standard for windows and very frustrating to work with.

This is correct. I've written a wrapper (185 lines) around the file dialog that
uses the GTK one on Linux and the Windows one on Windows.

> I like Ada.  I really do.  But I would not recommend using Ada for a 
> developing a GUI to anyone.

If it wasn't for the license I'd fail to see why developing GUIs for
Windows + Linux with Ada was a problem. If you're developing GPL apps
that doesn't bother you, but otherwise there are more affordable solutions.

-- 
No intelligent man has any respect for an unjust law. 
He simply follows the eleventh commandment.
-- R.A. Heinlein