[Bf-committers] UI layout engine

[Kyle Mallory]

I'm am a mere "Digest" observer, and wanted to comment generally on a
number of messages, so please forgive my solo post, devoid of any
context:


With the talk of Java Swing/Qt Glade, and in particular, Swing's GridBag
layout:

Don't be fooled, the downside of using these is that developing
consistent, and attractive user interfaces becomes buried in complex
hierarchies, which ultimately (and sadly) reduce code legibility and
maintenance.

As a long time user of Swing, I would encourage anyone looking for an
effective layout manager to look at the JGoodies (www.jgoodies.com)
tools, specifically Forms.

In particular, downloading
http://www.jgoodies.com/download/libraries/forms/forms-1_1_0.zip

Within this, is a short, excellent white-paper on the design objectives
of the JGoodies Form Layout.  While most of the examples are written in
Java, I believe the concepts (which comprise 90% of the white-paper) are
universal.

For the curious, I am not affiliated with JGoodies in any way.  I'm just
a coder who grew tired of trying to make the Java layout managers do
what I wanted, fighting with a dozen different manages in a hundred
different combinations, never able to get the result that I wanted--
until I found JGoodies.  It's not the end-all, there are still needs for
the other layouts, but this one dealt with the most troublesome, and I
believe, serves as an excellent example of the ideal layout manager.


My two pence.

Kyle