- Freestanding Blackbox applications?

From: Marco Ciot <"Marco>
Date: Wed, 17 May 2006 10:53:36 +0200

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> The main advantage I see of the tools like Visual Studio and Borland
Developer Studio over BlackBox are the more advanced Forms Designer, and the
improved cosmetic appearance, more layout capabilities and wider range of
available visual components (e.g. splitter bars, panels, progress bars,
sliders etc.).

> However, those issues are important to me but not critical. The real
showstopper for me, when I was considering doing more real work in BlackBox,
was the comparative difficulty of achieving some relatively basic operations
that happen 'automatically' in VS and BDS applications. Just one example -
when a user resizes a form which contains a table which fills the form, I
want the table on the form to also resize in sync. I spent much time trying
to work out how to code this in BlackBox without success. In Delphi the
*only* thing I have to do is set the 'Align' property of the table to
'alClient'.

This is where even I would invest some time in improving BB...
Integrating more of the Windows Controls
and extending the Forms Subsystem to support constraints.

Marco Ciot

-----Original Message-----
From: blackbox{([at]})nowhere.xy
Software
Sent: Wednesday, May 17, 2006 02:31
To: BlackBox Mailing List
Subject: [BlackBox] - Freestanding Blackbox applications?


> -----Original Message-----
> From: blackbox{([at]})nowhere.xy
> Behalf Of Douglas G. Danforth
>
> > Rene Krywult wrote:
> >
> > If you type in an object name followed by a dot, VS gives
> you all the
> > properties and methods of this object in a listbox directly
> under the
> > cursor.
> >
> > If you type in the name of a function or a procedure, an
> info is shown
> > about the parameters.
> >

> In BlackBox if you type Ctrl-D on a selected name you will
> get the interface for the module or the procedure definition,
> or type definition, etc..
>

Yes - I much prefer the BlackBox approach myself. The information is at my
fingertips when I *need* it rather than the IDE treating me like an idiot
and continually interrupting my train of thought.

The main advantage I see of the tools like Visual Studio and Borland
Developer Studio over BlackBox are the more advanced Forms Designer, and the
improved cosmetic appearance, more layout capabilities and wider range of
available visual components (e.g. splitter bars, panels, progress bars,
sliders etc.).

However, those issues are important to me but not critical. The real
showstopper for me, when I was considering doing more real work in BlackBox,
was the comparative difficulty of achieving some relatively basic operations
that happen 'automatically' in VS and BDS applications. Just one example -
when a user resizes a form which contains a table which fills the form, I
want the table on the form to also resize in sync. I spent much time trying
to work out how to code this in BlackBox without success. In Delphi the
*only* thing I have to do is set the 'Align' property of the table to
'alClient'.

Consequently, my current BlackBox work is limited to 'hobbyist' projects
which involves limited visual interaction.

--
Chris Burrows
CFB Software
http://www.cfbsoftware.com/gpcp
--- BlackBox
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Received on Wed May 17 2006 - 10:53:36 UTC