Main Area and Open Discussion > General Software Discussion

Free Pascal - Lazarus?

<< < (2/7) > >>

wraith808:
wraith808

 Thanks for the suggestion but I am not seeing any free version there. They  are trial versions?

I have used Pascal as well but that was 18 years ago :) It was Turbo Pascal 5.5
-kartal (February 20, 2010, 10:33 PM)
--- End quote ---

Wow... I hadn't downloaded turbo delphi in a while- I didn't realize that embarcadero had discontinued them.  Sorry about that, should have actually checked the links. :(

In what way is Lazarus painful?
-Edvard (February 21, 2010, 10:04 AM)
--- End quote ---

It's just a lot slower than delphi, and the ide is a lot less polished.  Sometimes, events that I have linked up inexplicably lose their connection, and the database bit is definitely difficult to get going.

MilesAhead:
Depending how extensive/sophisticated the GUI needs to be.. you may want to try AutoIt3.  It comes with KODA, which is a drag & drop form tool.  You can tell the guys who wrote it did Delphi as they emulate the form designer.

It doesn't have dozens of component, but it has enough that you can get your basic form with buttons, edit controls, etc.. then add to it in code.

My FolderCache and ReOpen utilities are AutoIt3.

You can see some screen shots here:
http://www.favessoft.com/hotkeys.html

You can compile to exe and even use ActiveX Controls with AutoIt3, but the weakness there is event handling.  Because it's not true compiled code ActiveX events don't trigger as they will in C++ VB or even C#.  But especially for a single form GUI it's not difficult.  The language itself is similar to basic and very easy to pick up.  It is Windows only though.  Most things absent from the language can be accomplished using DllCall to use WinAPI calls directly.

As example, to find out if Glass is enabled on the user's system you can use this function:


--- ---;returns non 0 if Glass is enabled on Vista/W7
Func _GlassEnabled()
$retValue = DllCall("dwmapi.dll", "int", "DwmIsCompositionEnabled", "int*", "")
If @error Then Return 0
Return $retValue[1]
EndFunc   ;==>_GlassEnabled

kartal:
@MilesAhead
Thanks for the suggestion. I already use tiny ahk stuff here and there, maybe I can move to Autoit. But for now I am mpre interested in investing my time time into cross platform stuff. I do not think I will ever make big stuff but would be nice to have the options

Python
So far I have looked into Tkinter(is ok), Pygtk(Glade), Wxpython. Pygtk seems fine and Glade is updated regularly. On the otherhand the Wxwidgets and Wxpython seems nice, cross platform and well documented, but all the Gui designers for Wx are old and has not been updated or abandoned. I do not think that I am interested in investing my time on abandoned projects. Although one can definetely write Gui apps without a designer. In Python it is not so hard, it just gets tedious at least based on my experience with Tkinter.


C++
I have looked into Codeblocks+Wx integration.It looks like very viable visual designer and cross platform developement. The thing is that C++ is whole another universe and I am not suire if starting Gui pogramming with C++ is a good idea or not. I am open to ideas in this regard really.


Pascal-Lazarus
Pascal is an old friend to me that was my main reason for bringing it up.

wraith808:
Pascal-Lazarus
Pascal is an old friend to me that was my main reason for bringing it up.
-kartal (February 21, 2010, 04:33 PM)
--- End quote ---

Don't get me wrong- Lazarus is impressive.  It's just not as good as native Delphi, just like SharpDevelop is not as good as Visual Studio (of course these are my own opinions).  If you want to go the pascal way, Lazarus is a good way to go.

f0dder:
The thing is that C++ is whole another universe and I am not suire if starting Gui pogramming with C++ is a good idea or not. I am open to ideas in this regard really.-kartal (February 21, 2010, 04:33 PM)
--- End quote ---
It isn't. Really. The GUI toolkits are either relatively painful, or are massive frameworks. Seriously, go with Visual Studio and C# unless you really need portability :)

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page