PowerGen?

[Frederic Faure]

(The Search button in the upper right-hand corner doesn't respond, so bear with me)

I haven't found a comparison of the different GUI builders for PB/DLL, so I'm checking them out myself. I intend to check out PB's commercial PowerGen, EZGUI 2.0, Jules Marchildon's Visual Forms Editor, Visual MetaFourGL, and JC Fuller's PWinADP.

I started with PGen, but I'm confused about to work with it

1. The venerable MS Dialog Editor creates two files (.DLG in ASCII, .RES in binary).

With File | New | Single Dialog, PGen expects an .RC file, but inputing a .DLG works. File | New | Application Shell, however, chokes with "Missing dialog CLASS in resource file."

What is the difference between those two options? According to the RC.HLP file, it appears that a "script file" is really the .DLG resource file with extra stuff What do I need to add for PGen to be happy and well?

2. I'm using PGen 1.0 that came out over 2 years ago. Did PowerBasic give up developing this tool, and if yes, any recommendation on the alternatives above?

Any info appreciated
FF.

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[Russ Srole]

Frederic,

I'm a EzGui 2.0 user & am really happy with it. It takes a lot
of the drudgery out of windows programming.

Russ Srole

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[Frederic Faure]

Thx for the input. Too bad EZGUI 2.0 is not available as trialware.

BTW, I see that some of those GUI builders generate dialogs instead of full-fledged windows. Since both come callback functions for the main window and each widget, why prefer dialogs instead of windows?

Thx
FF.

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[Lance Edmonds]

Frederic, be sure to check out the PowerGEN/Errata postings in the FAQ forum...

Basically, you just need to edit a couple of lines in the .DLG file to create a .RC file that can be compiled with RC.EXE.


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Lance
PowerBASIC Support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[Frederic Faure]

Originally posted by Lance Edmonds
Frederic, be sure to check out the PowerGEN/Errata postings in the FAQ forum...

Thx for the pointer! That answered my question as to the procedure to go from a dialog in MS Dialog Editor to an .EXE

1. Save the .DLG and .RES files generated by MS DE. Rename the .DLG file with an .RC extension
2. Edit this .RC file (removing the DLGINCLUDE RCDATA FIXED IMPURE, adding ref to .H)
3. Edit .H to include the equates
4. Run RC.EXE to compile the .RC file into a .RES file (not compatible with original .RES above, so watch out!)
5. Run PBRES.EXE to compile this new .RES into a .PBR binary
6. In your application, add a #RESOURCE meta-tag to refer to the .PBR file
6. Run PBDLL.EXE to compile both files into an .EXE

Done!

The MS DE is pretty old, though, so I'll try to find one that supports the common controls (Tree, etc.)

Thank you for the prompt help
FF.


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[Lance Edmonds]

Visual Studio, aka MS VC5++ is cheap enough (2nd hand) and the resource editor is excellent.

Also Borland's Resource Studio should cope with that.

The PowerGEN help file describes the use of files from both of these editors, and BUILD32.BAT settings, etc.



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Lance
PowerBASIC Support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[Frederic Faure]

Visual Studio, aka MS VC5++ is cheap enough (2nd hand) and the resource editor is excellent. Also Borland's Resource Studio should cope with that.

Thx for the pointers. I found copies of Symantec Resource Studio 1.0 and Borland Resource Workshop 4.5, and I probably have an old copy of VC++ lying around swhere.

Thx
FF.



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[Lance Edmonds]

Er, I ment to say "Resource Workshop" not "Resource Studio".

It's been a long time since I used the Symantec product, and I seem to remember that it was, um, not the best editor. Actually, I'm not even sure if it produces RC files that will work with PowerGEN. You'll have to try it for yourself, however, if you have the Borland or MS product, why bother?

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Lance
PowerBASIC Support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[Frederic Faure]

Right :-)

BTW, besides making it impossible to use MDI child windows, what are the drawbacks, if any, of using dialogs instead of full-fledged windows? Is it just that, historically, the only GUI builders available were to build dialogs?

FF.


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[Chris Boss]

Frederic;

Dialogs benefit from the extra processing of messages by the
DefDialogProc function, (rather than DefWindowProc). A number of
common messages are processed differently by this function. This
extra processing basically benefits a Dialog with standard controls
in areas such as the keyboard (ie. Tabbing).

The disadvantage to Dialogs is that you don't have access to the
Dialogs Window procedure, but only a Dialog procedure (they are
different). For example, a Dialog procedure will not get a WM_CREATE
message, but will get the WM_INITDIALOG message. A Window (non dialog)
will get the WM_CREATE message, but not the WM_INITDIALOG.

Such things as MDI are not well suited to use with Dialogs. It is
better to use your own Window classes when building an app that
uses MDI. MDI requires access to the Window procedure, since you
will use a replacement for the DefWindowProc function for both
the MDI child and Parent.

For complete control of your windows, using your own window class
is likely best. On the other hand Dialogs are easier and will handle
more than 90% of your needs.

For those who want the best of both, you can create your own custom
Dialog class. The technique is similiar to superclassing (not subclassing)
of controls. You superclass the Dialog class to create your own
custom dialog class and then use the CreateDialogIndirect
function to create the dialogs (rather than CreateWindowEx).

This allows you to have both a Window procedure and a Dialog procedure
for your Dialogs.




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[Frederic Faure]

Thx for the explanation.

FF.

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