Re: time for PgAdmin IV ?

Marian POPESCU wrote:
> Guillaume Lelarge wrote:
>
> Well, for me it seems that there were some serious efforts to overcome bugs
> in wxWidgets; today there is no PgAdmin3 1.6.1 for Fedora available: wxW
> 2.8.x was not released ...

wxWidgets 2.8 has been released, and even if it hadn't been it's not
really any different from most other versions of pgAdmin where we also
used non-release versions of wxWidgets because we needed bleeding edge
functionality.

> On the other hand, this library allows you to develop and deliver a *single
> file* executable with the *same* code on at least 3 platforms at once ...

We can do that with wxWidgets. Just run a static build <shrug>/

> Graphics are excellent and they are/look the *same* on the 3 platforms ...

There's a major problem for a start. One of the reasons we use wxWidgets
is because it uses the native widget set on each platform to retain the
standard look'n'feel for the user. Again though, if we wanted to make
the user use a standard widget set, we could just as easily use wxUniversal.

> wx is kind of ugly (for me, at least) and takes a lot of screen space just
> to display big borders inside big borders ...

The way we use wxWidgets it uses the standard widgets on each platform
so it should look essentially the same as any other native app. The
exception is on Mac where the carbon graphics library in use has been a
bit kludgy until now. I've been working with the wxMac guys to ensure
their new interface works well with pgAdmin - expect to see that with
the 1.6.2 build.

> Of course I'm not the developper of PgAdmin and surely I have no idea of
> what's inside its code - by the way, the devs are really doing a great
> job - but I guess it will not hurt to simplify and optimize - and to me
> PgAdmin needs it (how many bugs caused by wxW needed workarounds by now?).

You assume that there are no bugs in Juce, which I very much doubt. I
also imagine there's a whole host of *very* complex features that we use
in pgAdmin that are missing altogether - in particular ones that spring
to mind are

- the advanced frame manager that provides the docking window support

- the styled text control with SQL syntax highlighting and all it's
other useful features that allow us to do error location and brace
matching for example.

- i18n support

- A grid control (even the list box doesn't appear to support multiple
columns).

- Support for *BSD and Solaris.

> Having a framework that is instantly available on several platforms and that
> can be linked inside the executable file could be a nice advantage for
> PgAdmin: easy to install, not big size, and fully functional - could make
> life a lot easier for many out there ( including devs ;-) ) ...

I honestly don't see anything there that wxWidgets cannot do. We have
build scripts for wx that allow you to build and install all useful
variant builds on Windows, Mac and FreeBSD/Solaris/Linux with a single
command, and if you want a single executable, just configure pgAdmin
with --enable-static (which I do for the Slackware package, and is in
fact the only supported build on Windows at present!).

Regards, Dave.