New to Sigma, just some questions

[jobie]

Hi everyone,

I stumbled upon VisualJS accidentally during my never-ending quest for a javascript framework with an application-style paradigm.  I had been experimenting with Qooxdoo, which is quite good, but it lacks a nice editor.  I had been struggling through a Qooxdoo project for 3 days, and recreated my work in Sigma in about 5 minutes.  Really impressive.

So I've downloaded the system, and have been working with it on localhost for the past 24 hours, and I'm really mega-impressed with the quality.  It's really well-done.

Nevertheless, I have a few questions I'm hoping some of the gurus can help me with:

1.  I have put some custom art in the "img" folder off of my project folder, and I specify the URL as relative, i.e. "img/picture.png" ... the picture does not show up in the designer, but it does when I run the app.  The designer still seems to reference the VisualJS/img folder, but the app itself references the correct folder.  Is there any way to remedy this so I can see my images in the designer (short of copying my images to both folders!)

2.  Other than the 3 basic themes (which aren't bad), are there any 3rd party themes available?  What's involved in creating a theme?

3.  Is it possible to create custom controls and add them to the editor?

4.  Is there a list of published sites/apps that were done with the designer/linb library?  The demos are quite good and very impressive technically, but I'd love to see what others are doing with this tool.

Thanks so much...again, great work, and I look forward to deploying a real project with VisualJS soon!

-John

[linb]

1.  I have put some custom art in the "img" folder off of my project folder, and I specify the URL as relative, i.e. "img/picture.png" ... the picture does not show up in the designer, but it does when I run the app.  The designer still seems to reference the VisualJS/img folder, but the app itself references the correct folder.  Is there any way to remedy this so I can see my images in the designer (short of copying my images to both folders!)

>> Update the latest code from svn. Input "@PRJ_PATH$img/img/picture.png" .

2.  Other than the 3 basic themes (which aren't bad), are there any 3rd party themes available?  What's involved in creating a theme?

>> copy folder "appearance\vista" to "appearance\othertheme", modify the picutures and css little by little.

3.  Is it possible to create custom controls and add them to the editor?

>> sure

4.  Is there a list of published sites/apps that were done with the designer/linb library?  The demos are quite good and very impressive technically, but I'd love to see what others are doing with this tool.

>> Most commercial apps are internal management applications, can't be accessed in Internet. We are collecting LGPL apps, maybe you can post your app here.

[jobie]

Thanks for the response!

Well, I just did this simple site in the last 2 days, start to finish, and I have to say it was a great development experience overall.

http://www.pass2u.com

Although I'm a professional desktop software and game developer, I've never written any javascript or actually deployed anything in PHP, so there was a bit of a learning curve there.  But overall the project workflow was smooth.  I even managed to do some neat things like automatically correcting text input as you type.

The only issues I ran into were:

(1) one time I added an event handler, and it put it in the wrong place in the code, causing a syntax error, but it was easy to fix manually.

(2) Near the end of the project, the IDE got pretty slow and kept moving the cursor to the top of my page spontaneously.

I'm anxious to start another project, something a bit more complex this time.

-John

[linb]

(1) one time I added an event handler, and it put it in the wrong place in the code, causing a syntax error, but it was easy to fix manually.

>> It's a bug, but I cant repeat it. If you know that, show me the steps please.

(2) Near the end of the project, the IDE got pretty slow and kept moving the cursor to the top of my page spontaneously.

>> in IE or firefox with firebug? If you are in firefox with firebug, disable firebug will be better.
>> Actually, chrome is the best in performance.

[jobie]

>> It's a bug, but I cant repeat it. If you know that, show me the steps please.

It only happened once, so I will keep an eye out for it if it happens again.  One thing that I do which may be a contributing factor is do column-aligned brace matching, rather than traditional K&R style braces.  So I modified the generated code to look this way.  The other thing is put 3-line comment blocks between each handler as a visual separator.

>> in IE or firefox with firebug? If you are in firefox with firebug, disable firebug will be better.

Yes, Firefox and Firebug.  My Javascript kung fu is not where it needs to be yet, so Firebug is a bit of a necessary evil for me.  Although, I can develop and test in Chrome and use Firefox if I need to debug something.

>> Actually, chrome is the best in performance.

I just tried it, and you're right, the difference is substantial.  If full Firebug support were available on Chrome, I'd switch entirely.  Firefox/Firebug causes my entire system to pause every few seconds and it's terribly annoying.

Incidentally, I downloaded the latest from SVN and the $PRJ_PATH/img worked like a charm.  However, when navigating to the new version on my localhost, I get to the "basic mode", and when I select "Builder ADVANCED version" from the menu, it takes me to the internet site rather than switching me the version on my localhost.  Just FYI...not a big deal, I have it bookmarked now, but it might cause confusion for new users.

ADDENDUM: As a follow-up to my earlier post...you answered that it was possible to create custom components and have them appear as available in the editor.  Is there any documentation anywhere that describes this process?

-John

[linb]

http://sigmawidgets.com/forum/knowledge-share/how-to-create-custom-components-and-have-them-appear-as-available-in-the-builder

[jobie]

Thanks for the post...though I must have done something wrong, the component does not show up (yet I don't notice any build problems as the batch file is running.)

On another note, the IDE continually resets my @PRJ_PATH$img/image.png paths to full http://localhost/VisualJS/jsLinb3.0/VisualJS/projects/MyProject/img/filename.png ... I'm guessing that would not export back down to relative pathing for deployment, right?

Thanks again!

-John

[linb]

It's a bug. Fixed!

[jobie]

I pulled the latest from SVN, and the path still changes automatically.  It's not a big deal for me right now, I can globally search and replace the text if I need to deploy...just letting you know.  :-)

-John

[linb]

How to reproduce this bug?

[jobie]

Hi Linb,

It's pretty easy.

1.  Set the image path in the source view to be @PRJ_PATH$img/picture.png

2.  Switch to design page and drop some component anywhere on the form...I just tried it with a label.

3.  Switch back to code view, it has changed itself back to the fully qualified path.


One clue...even though the path has been changed in the source code to the shortened relative path, the design view still shows the full path in the properties panel.

Hope that helps,

-John

[linb]

"Showing the full path in the properties panel" is normal.