wxMax WishList

We've reached 1.00! But there's always room for improvement and new features.

What else do you think wxMax should support?


* wxRichTextCtrl - a generic (non-native) text control with support for styles, paragraph formatting and images.
* wxSkin - Skinning for windows and controls.
* wxGraphicsContext (wxGCDC) - An improved graphics context. (requires gdi+ on Win32)
* XRC - XML UI Resource support, which lets you define your UI in XML, rather than hard-coding everything. Done!
* wxCodeGen enhancements - support DialogBlocks and wxGlade editors. Add wxPropertyGrid generation, and others.
* (wx)Cocoa - preferred eventual move to cocoa base on Mac, when it is mature enough.
* wxPowerEvent
* wxArt2D - a library for 2D graphical programming.
* wxLatexDC - a device context for generating LaTeX2e files. (hah... requires wxWidgets 2.9... so on hold for the foreseeable future!!!)
* wxMediaCtrl - native (or thereabouts) media playback.
* wxDocument/wxCommand/wxView...and related classes - part of the document/model/view framework
* wxWebUpdate - highly configurable application updater solution.
* wxMathPlot - A groovy graph plotter.
* wxShapeFramework Editor framework for things like UML diagrams.

.

Excuse me but i'm not up to date. Does WxMax support skinning of the gui?
If not this would be my no.1 wish.

And fantastic piece of work Brucey - your amazing :)

I have a working version of a wxSkin module on Linux and Win32, although it doesn't seem to work properly on MacOS - which is why I never got around to releasing it properly.

Here's a link to the site : http://www.upcase.de/wxSkin.html

I guess that's the sort of thing you are after? ;-)

I remember you mentioning wxSkin early on in development ;)

I would vouch for it too! Is it just the BlitzMax version that doesn't work? or does the actual code not work on Mac?

No idea... it's meant to work, but for some reason the controls don't seem to be getting events properly, on Mac.
It looks fine, skin wise.

Perhaps I can work on a release anyway, and a fix will magic itself out of the air... :-p

I fancy adding support for DialogBlocks project files... it's another GUI editor

Would it be possible to get wxGraphicsContext/wxGCDC added? :)

Easy for Mac and Linux, not so easy for Win32, since it requires prying GDI Plus headers from the SDK, and tying your app to gdi+ dll.
(I'm already building the static libs with GC support on Mac and Linux)

I've no issues with the dll, just that I've yet to find a version of the headers that compiles with wxWidgets - perhaps I need to try the latest SDK...

Oh man, that's awesome!

I feel like it's been forever since I checked up on wxMax and even Blitz - I'm not working at the same place where I was using BM so there isn't much I'm using it for lately. It's good to see a 1.0 release! Great work.

Well, I've *finally* managed to get wxWidgets to compile on Win32 with the graphics context enabled... it required me downloading the Windows SDK, ripping out the GDI headers, and tweaking them so that they would compile in MinGW...

But we'll see... I'm going to try implementing wxGCDC on Mac first, and then see what happens when I try to build the module on Win32... (gulp).

re: wxGCDC

It is now "live" in the SVN release of wxMax. For Win32 users, you will probably need to update to the latest static libs : wxwidgets_2.8.8_static_win32b.zip (5.4meg)

I've currently only implemented wxGCDC, and not wxGraphicsContext yet, and I've tested it so far on Mac and Win32, which both appear to be functioning as expected (i.e. no apparent errors).

One note, for pre XP, you would need to ship a gdiplus.dll with your app, as Win2k and lower do not have one.

Question: What happened to the OS X/PPC port of wxMax? You don't seem to mention it anymore and even the PPC-libraries have disappeared from the project homepage. Is it officially dead?

No... I've ran out of space on the google site (I'm up to 193meg of 200). I've requested an increase to 300, they accepted it on Aug 6th, but as yet it hasn't changed...

It's not like I haven't asked them nicely : http://code.google.com/p/support/issues/detail?id=1360&q=wxmax&colspec=ID%20Type%20Status%20Milestone%20Priority%20Stars%20Owner%20Summary


Once I get a bump up, I'll post that one too :-)

wxRichTextCtrl vote =(


and that other option that you used transparent text for: supporting blob and date fields in your database module [/evil smirk]

Thank you for adding wxGCDC! :D Sorry it turned out to be a pain.

It's not quite finished yet as I still need to open up wxGraphicsContext that you can use to draw with also - it's apparently faster to draw on that, from what I've read, but the wxGCDC is a DC so it's probably easier to use that - i.e. you might draw on the screen and a printer as a DC.

My app has a complete cow when XP comes out of Standby mode. Any chance of adding wxPowerEvent?

I've added the wxPowerEvent stuff... only works on Win32 apparently.


Just a handy link for me, in case I ever get around to doing something crazy on the Mac : http://developer.apple.com/qa/qa2004/qa1340.html

Thanks so much Brucey :-)

Brucey - if you need any webspace let me know. Under your own control of course.

Thanks Beaker :-)

For now, I'm still hanging out hope that Google will sort themselves out.

I know that this is not a modest request, and I also know that it probably cannot be done yet, but I'd like to add it to the wishlist anyway: A Cocoa backend instead of the Carbon one.

A downloadable PPC-binary would also be great; I've tried a couple of times, but I couldn't get wxMax compiled on my PowerBook G4.

I'd like that too, but trying to find out any information on the current state of "wxCocoa" doesn't reveal much.
Lots of advantages to using Cocoa, especially as far as mixing in Objective-C operations, and features such as those new fancy windows (quicklook etc).


I shall try to sort that out for the weekend, hopefully. Usually builds fine on my Powerbook G4 ;-)

There's another advantage for Cocoa apps: The preference pane framework only works with Cocoa apps; it can't be used by Carbon programs...

Oh, and that's another one for the wishlist: The preference pane framework. ;-)

Just kidding. Ok, not really, but it's all asked too much and you're already working too much for free, if you want my opinion. You should start selling your modules as a commercial bundle or as a subscription-based model, I'm sure we'd all gladly shelf out some bucks for it. You're doing outstanding work, and I know that even the best artist cannot eat the applause...

I would be great if wxWidgets was more Cocoa friendly at this time. Mind you, I've not actually tried it to see what is (or isn't) supported. I guess I went for the "course of least resistance".

As for working for free... well, it's just a hobby really ;-)
And folks can always mail me if they'd like to sort out some paid-for work with new/existing modules. I've not had any negative feedback from anyone who's been down that route yet. (and usually people are more vocal when parting with their hard-earned cash).

But I tend not to advertise myself... I'm not entrepreneurial enough.

However, expect more cocoa related stuff in the coming months, as I've just acquired myself an ipod touch.

Yay... only a dozen or so widgets left which require XRC support.... *phew*

I think that's XRC widget support finished now (although chances are I've missed one somewhere!)
Probably a little bit more to add to wx.wxXmlResource, but it should work for most cases now.

Remember to Import all the gadgets you expect to be using. :-p

Added a couple more "wishes" :-)

wxArt2D seems to come with a lot of requirements, so I'll need to go over them a bit more before I can see how feasible it is.

Finished wxGraphicsContext... adds lots of Cairo-like drawing functionality. Yay.

wxMediaCtrl

This is my pick. A media player would be great!

Brucey,

I just noticed that you do not have wxDirPickerCtrl implemented. Do you plan to add it? Or should I build my own using wxDirDialog?

Edit: Nevermind, I realized that it is implemented in wxFilePickerCtrl after a little searching.

Apologies for that. It was easier (lazy?) to put the two together since they are sharing the same Event type.

Maybe it wasn't such a good idea.

I have no problem with it. Just needed to find it. No big deal.

Is there and complete index of everything you have implemented somewhere? Maybe an indication of what has to be imported for each one?

Not yet. There probably needs to be.

Hey Brucey :-)

Any chance of the Activate and Iconise event methods being filled out? I've got a parent window with some rogue children who refuse to reappear on an Activate, or, if I do things another way, on an Iconise event.

(events.bmx)

Type wxActivateEvent Extends wxEvent
	Rem
	bbdoc: Returns true if the application or window is being activated, false otherwise.
	End Rem
	Method GetActive:Int()
		DebugLog "GetActive TODO"
	End Method

End Type

Type wxIconizeEvent Extends wxEvent
	
	Method Iconized:Int()
		DebugLog "Iconized TODO"
	End Method
	
End Type

[edit] Realised after posting this I can use IsIconized and IsActive instead.

I've implemented those TODOs now :-)

Also added wxWebUpdate to the wish list, since I think it might be very useful.

That's great - thanks Brucey!

The thing I would like to see is the addition of the wxAdditions widgets in the CodeGen export. If only just the definition/creation. As the widgets are placed on sizers, and sizers are created locally in the OnInit() method, it requires some hacking (making the sizer definition a field in the base type which can be accessed in the extended frame type) to create/size them.

Other than that, I'm fully into wx mode now, discovering the neat things in there, so I don't have a wish list for wxMax yet! :)

If you need to do that, you can set its "permission" to be protected or public, which should then cause it to generate a Field definition for it.


Yep, it needs to be done :-)

Thanks for that tip Brucey, it worked. I'm such a n00b with wxWidgets... Getting there though, need to sort out the events now!

Arrays =]

Arrays?
No need. They are translated by the framework between BlitzMax types and wxWidgets.
So where you see a wxArrayInt, you should be able to use a Int[] instead. Same for Strings.

It current can convert between Int[], String[] and Double[], which are the main ones I've come across so far - but it's hidden since you don't need to know about it :-p

I know you're bombarded between wx, raknet (thanks a million, a million times), and plenty more...i'm just wondering if you still plan on digging into the wxrichtextctrl in the long-term future.

I understand wxtextctrl can basically do all the main formatting, however writeimage is the only other important format feature that I find isn't available, which unfortunately (I may be wrong) is only available in wxrichtextctrl.

I just ask ahead of time to understand better what exactly my options are/will be for image support in a client chat window.

Thanks

Yes indeedy!

But it's one of those very large APIs that look like it might take forever and a day to work through.
(not that I haven't been there before!)

If it's on the list, It'll get done ;-)

Ahhh ok thanks for the heads up :)