WinDev

[Patrice Terrier]

Here is a demo i wrote in 2006 to see if i could emulate the VISTA look on XP and W2K with WinDev.

To open a second child popup, click on the round button located on the left of the caption.

The name of the EXE is VistaSkin.exe

...

[Charles Pegge]

It looks great but huge runtimes from PC-Soft 4.5 meg for a little translucent window!

Well I suppose it's no worse than downloading a large photograph or 4 minutes of MP3 but hard to reconcile with our philosophy of small efficiently coded programs.

It's a size versus productivity tradeoff, and size is getting cheaper all the time.

[Patrice Terrier]

Code Select Expand

huge runtimes from PC-Soft 4.5 meg
Yes, but smaller than the DotNET framework. 

And when you create a complete CRM or ERP application then the EXE size will be still the same

The real gain is not about the program size, but productivity.

I can create a complete working, and modern looking application, 10 to 100 time faster than with true compiled code, and the "end user" will only see the result, not the size of the code and the language being used to wrote it.

WinDev is being used by more than 80,000 programmers world wide, they can't be all wrong 
And they pay each year, at least 450 Euro to get the latest version...
(full version Euro 1200)

There must be definitly some benefits for all these guys to use it, or they are all mad (including myself).

...

[Charles Pegge]

Looking through their brochure, it seems very business oriented. Square spectacles and smiley teeth . This kind of programming lends itself very well to systematisation, but for multimedia stuff   games, CAD  and anything unusual, I presume you are thrown back to low level programming.

[Patrice Terrier]

--Charles

"Buisiness programming" is where i earn my living, multimedia programming, as we say here, is my "danseuse" (dancing girl).

However I am also a third party addon provider for WinDev with my GDImage, and multimedia tools (written in PB).

...

[Theo Gottwald]

Patrice, I think the WinDev People are on the right way.
Maybe they are "bussiness oriented", but not everybody has rich parents and can do his job "just for the arts".
I think PB must also be a bit more "bussiness oriented" bacause in other words this means:
"Produce what people want, expect and buy".

[Patrice Terrier]

Patrice, how is the combination of PB and WinDev for GUIs ?
Could you recommend that? Maybe call a PB-DLL and use a WinDEV GUI?

Yes they both work fine together.

Here is an example of WinDev code calling my GDImage API:

Code Select Expand


// Add a new sprite image to the GDImage control
FUNCTION GDImageAddSpriteImage(UseSprite is string, x is int, y is int, nUseDecor is int)
nID, nSpriteCount, nIndice, nRVB, nRVBc, hBitmap, NewID, nIDtoClone are int
rZoomValue is 4-byte real = ZI_GetZoomValue(gCtrl) // Get current Zoom value

// Indice de la couleur sélectionnée
nIndice = ArraySeek(tabListeRAL, asLinear, "CodeRAL", COMBO_Color)
nRVB = tabListeRAL[nIndice]:CodeRVB
nRVBc = tabListeRAL[nIndice]:ContourRVB
sLabel is string = fExtractPath(UseSprite, fFileName)

hBitmap = GDImageBuildSpriteDecor(UseSprite, nRVB, nRVBc)

NewID = 0
IF hBitmap THEN
   NewID = IncrID() // Incrément ID et gSprite array
   
   nSpriteCount = ArrayCount(gSprite)
   IF nSpriteCount THEN
      nIDtoClone = 0
      // On détecte les objets similaires pour récupérer le handle du bitmap
      // au lieu d'en créer un nouveau (clonage)
      FOR nID = 1 TO nSpriteCount
          IF gSprite[nID]:decor = nUseDecor   THEN
             IF gSprite[nID]:clone = 0 THEN  // On peut clone cet objet
                nIDtoClone = gSprite[nID]:ID
                BREAK
             END                                     
          END                 
      END
   END
   IF nIDtoClone THEN // L'objet existe déjà on le clone
      ZD_CloneObject(nIDtoClone, NewID, x, y)
      SpriteArrayGet(NewID)   
   ELSE
      ZD_DrawBitmapToCtrl(gCtrl, x, y, hBitmap, ZD_ColorARGB(255, nRVB), NewID, ZS_VISIBLE)
      ZD_SetObjectImageLabel(NewID, sLabel)
      ZD_SetObjectScroll(NewID, True)
      //ZD_SetObjectLocked(NewID, True)
      ZD_UsePngOpacity(NewID, True)
      gSprite[NewID]:filename = UseSprite  // Nom du décor sans l'extension LeContour ou LeFond
   END
   SpriteArrayGet(NewID)   
   ZD_SetObjectZorder(ID_DECOR, ZD_ORDER_TOP)
   ZI_UpdateWindow(gCtrl, False)  // Show new sprite
END
RESULT NewID // New sprite unique ID, if success


And here is an example of WD encapsulation of a GDImage function:

Code Select Expand

// Retrieve each byte from an ARGB color
PROCEDURE ZD_GetObjectARGB(ID is int, Alpha is 1-byte unsigned int, Red is 1-byte unsigned int, Green is 1-byte unsigned int, Blue is 1-byte unsigned int)
API(MyDLL, "ZD_GetObjectARGB", ID, &Alpha, &Red, &Green , &Blue)


...

[Patrice Terrier]

Panorama 360

See attached to this post a WD10 (WinDev 10) project based on the GDImage built-in OpenGL features.

...

[Patrice Terrier]

Carousel

To help you make a comparison, you can check two versions of my GDImage carousel demo.

1 - the PB version that is there:
http://www.jose.it-berater.org/smfforum/index.php?topic=1327.0

2 - The WinDev version attached to this post in CarouselWD.zip (main exe Carrousel.exe)

...

[Theo Gottwald]

This Windwev thing runs very smooth even under W2k.

About the Panorama - this is the smoothest Panorama I've ever seen. Especially as I run it at 1944x1440 and its still smooth.

[Patrice Terrier]

WinDev + GDImage, a winning combination!



Try the resulting EXE in the attached ZIP file

[Petr Schreiber]

Thanks Patrice,

I like your PB projects more as they are more compact.
But the sample works cool, the flying window on the start is cool!

Just one problem - left clicking is ok, but I cannot get the context menu displayed.


Thanks,
Petr

[Patrice Terrier]

Petr,

I like your PB projects more as they are more compact.

Yes, but WinDev does so many things that would take me... years, to program with any low level language.

Thus between efficiency and small size, when i have to produce a large CRM application, i can do it ten time faster than with anything else. This gives me a definitive advantage on any competitors, as long as they are not using WinDev themselves 

but I cannot get the context menu displayed

The extra contextual menu pops up, only when you "right clic on any of the two thumbnail on the left.
If it doesn't work for you, this is perhaps related to the same symptom you had with the skinned button in the color picker of my SDK examples, perhaps another CZ windoz oddity

...

[Petr Schreiber]

Hi Patrice,

yes, WinCZ might be the problem, although I continuously use Windows Update, the combobox in color picker still does not work.
So I am tweaking out zColorpick_basic.inc, which does not have any comboobx part, only the click-and-pick color part.
Once finished, I will publish it here so others can use it too.


Thanks,
Petr

[Patrice Terrier]

Hello Günter,

Looks like at least you and another PowerBASIC user followed my advice 

You will soon discover how much WinDev could increase your PowerBASIC productivity.
Using WD to create your interface with ease and PB to speed up things with plain Win32 DLL.

...