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From: mwm@pa.dec.com (Mike (My Watch Has Windows) Meyer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Re: GadTools functionality
Message-ID: <MWM.91Jan30172855@raven.pa.dec.com>
Date: 30 Jan 91 23:28:55 GMT
References: <91023.105132GHGAQA4@cc1.kuleuven.ac.be>
	<MWM.91Jan23105444@raven.pa.dec.com> <18096@cbmvax.commodore.com>
	<MWM.91Jan28112420@raven.pa.dec.com> <18205@cbmvax.commodore.com>
	<MWM.91Jan28170750@raven.pa.dec.com> <18249@cbmvax.commodore.com> <MWM
	<18312@cbmvax.commodore.com>
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In-Reply-To: peter@cbmvax.commodore.com's message of 30 Jan 91 18:11:45 GMT

In article <18312@cbmvax.commodore.com> peter@cbmvax.commodore.com (Peter Cherna) writes:

   In article <MWM.91Jan29150653@raven.pa.dec.com> mwm@pa.dec.com (Mike (My Watch Has Windows) Meyer) writes:
   Standard problem.  Anything you write yourself and/or already use tends to
   be easier than something new.  Anything it does better or different than
   the new thing seems (and sometimes is) harder in the new thing.

Especially when the things you wrote yourself were designed to deal
with a specific problem that wasn't dealt with in the new thing. It's
not that my tools are easier to use - it's that they solve what I see
as the hard problem, whereas GadTools doesn't address the problem, and
prevents me from applying my old solutions.

   Relative gadgets are both hard to support and insufficient.  How do
   you make a row of three buttons, evenly spaced?   The left one would
   be absolutely positioned, the right one would be GRELRIGHT, and the
   middle one is, um, GRELRIGHT/2?

I hear you saying "You don't really want that anyway". This is _not_
the same answer as "we're working on it". With GadTools, how do I keep
a gadget 5 pixels from the right edge of the window as the user
resizes the window? Your problem with GREL has a fairly simple
solution (and a trivial solution using the tools I designed). GadTools
makes the solution harder to apply to either problem, if it doesn't
make it insoluble.

   Moving gadgets are hard, too.

Actually, moving Intuition gadgets is easy - I do it all the time.
Moving GadTools gadgets is impossible (at least you told me I couldn't
do it). And this answer _still_ isn't "we're working on it."

The last thing from the previous round was layout libraries. What I
heard you saying was "You don't really want that anyway", saying that
layout programs were the answer. Those are insufficient - they require
using to low a bandwidth device, can't adequately deal with system
font changes, and don't provide end users enough flexibility.

The answer "you don't want/need that" the biggest part of the
perception that you thought the world was the way it was supposed to
be. Note that saying "we're working on it" doesn't involve revealing
_what_ solution you're thinking about, or which direction you're
going, or etc. Just that you acknowledge the problem exists, and have
are working on a solution (possibly still trying to find one, even).

   Tags are easy to add afterwards. That's their biggest attraction.

Ok, so I should have said "GREL tag" instead of "GREL flag".

	<mike
--
It's been a hard day's night,				Mike Meyer
And I been working like a dog.				mwm@pa.dec.com
It's been a hard day's night,				decwrl!mwm
I should be sleeping like a log.