Best tools for a GUI programme
 

Presently I am maintaining a database driven software system for my small office as an intranet. (Linux / apache/Mysql/PHP). As there are limitations in enhancing interactive features in an intranet/ web page based application, I plans to switch to a proper GUI application either fully or partly. Although I tried PHP-Gtk and PyGtk, about two years back, I am not fully satisfied. Due to the steep learning curve, I do not want java either.

Is there any other tools or combination of tools like PyGtk, for developing an interactive GUI based application ?. What is the best such tools for creating a linux application and a cross platform (linux and windows) GUI based application.

My programming experience is only on PHP. If nothing else is available, which is better now, PHPGtk or PyGtk ?

Programming is about learning my friend. If your afraid of a learning curve then computers might not be the best suit for you. Sorry if it sounds a bit mean but its the truth.

My recommendations is to learn C with GTK or QT. Or simply learn the X11 system and work it along side WIN32 for both windows and Linux programming in order to keep things slim while still providing native support for both systems.

But if you want to learn GUI programming then you have to learn GUI systems.

And once again sorry if I seem a bit jumpy at you, its just this is something that gets to me when it comes to people that are afraid to learn and expect to be programmers... I do wish you luck in your endeavors.

-Jessica-

I am not familiar with either PHPGtk or PyGtk, but since you familiar with php, have you considered drupal?

http://drupal.org

It is probably capable of doing what you want, and there is a good chance modules are available for what you need. If not, then you could create your own modules and contribute to the drupal community.

If you want cross-platform compatibility, I'd check one of these:

• gtk+c, there are bindings related to these for python and other languages, I haven't much idea about these combos, and I have no idea of the current status of gtk on windows. According to the stuff I read in the gimp ML, it's not as good as it could be.
• .net, there's a free implementation, called "mono" in linux
• java, some people say it's "cross platform", I hate it
• qt4/c++
• web frontend, it's probably the better and easier when you want true cross platform support stuff involving db's and such kind of backends, there's drupal and a big lot of alternatives around, all you need is an OS that can run any web browser, period

Depending on the project I'd choose either of the last two, because that's what I am more confortable with.

If you are an VB fan you might want to check gambas, but it has serious downsides: first it's not portabe, it's similar to VB, but it's not VB. However, if you know VB and you don't care about maintaining separate branches for windows and linux then you might want to check it. Second, I don't see it going anywhere. As far as I know it's still on the qt3 world, and qt3 is already abandonware. I wouldn't consider it for any serious development, even more when there's network stuff involved, because there will be no more security updates for it.

This post has inspired me to finally get round to doing some GTK+ and C++ lol

James

You might want to look at Lazarus / freepascal. It's portable between linux and Windows, but obviously you'll have to learn object pascal.

Thanks for all the replies. I am seeking for an easier programming language is not because I am afraid of learning, but rather because, I am not in a computer related profession. Basically I am a Management professional with law and finance. But I do programming in my spare time for use by my organisation.
Presently I do have a working web based system, using LAMP. But some suggestions are again for such system. I am looking for alternatives because on certain occasions, I require more interactivity which is very difficult to achieve on a web page.
BTW, is there anything more in drupal for enhancing interactivity ?
I will check on the suggestion for lazarus / free pascal. If any body is using it, please post their experience using it, particularly for database grids, tree views, raw printing etc.

Also I invite views on Gtk c++ combination.

If nothing turns out, I will go for pygtk, which fairly meets my needs.

Regards,

Raju

If you are using Windoze as well as Linux, which it seems you are, GTK+ is portable to windoze; I have used several ported-from-linux programs in windoze which use the GTK toolkit.

There are also some good GUI IDEs for developing your projects; anjuta is one, and it has a GTK interface designer too. Google will turn up lots of stuff on how to make a basic GTK interface with C++.

James

Maybe take a look at ajax, it might be what you are looking for or not, I am not sure.

For this, check gtkmm, which is a c++ interface to gtk+, since gtk+ is pure C, and not C++.

PS. I have no idea if gtkmm has been ported to or works in windows.

Good luck with GTK and C++! I apologize if my post seemed a bit harsh. I tend to get a bit on the defensive side when it comes to programming.

One bit of help I can give, because I ran into this when compiling GTK on Windows, is to give you a little example of a DOS compile command. I use Dev-cpp for windows because it uses GCC and has a nice package manager (Make sure you update the list because the version it comes with is outdated. this can be updated with the package manager)

gcc main.c -I C:\Dev-Cpp\include\gtk-2.0 -I C:\Dev-Cpp\lib\gtk-2.0\include -I C:\Dev-Cpp\include\atk-1.0 -I C:\Dev-Cpp\include\pango-1.0 -I C:\Dev-Cpp\include\glib-2.0 -I C:\Dev-Cpp\lib\glib-2.0\include -lgtk-win32-2.0 -lgdk-win32-2.0 -latk-1.0 -lgdk_pixbuf-2.0 -lpangowin32-1.0 -lgdi32 -lpango-1.0 -lgobject-2.0 -lgmodule-2.0 -lglib-2.0 -mwindows -mms-bitfields -o Program.exe

Make sure you have atk, pango, glib, glib and gtk installed with the package manager if you use this compiler. This at least worked for me.

-Jessica-

you mite want to lookup v-tcl

Have a look at Perl / TCL / TK+

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