Eli Golovinsky wrote:
The recent discussion about the usability of sizers and the merits of absolute positioning, I thought I'd create a new thread on XRCed and its features.
Being an open source editor written completely in Python and wxPython it could be the perfect tool to make our lives (and maybe the lives of other wx users in other languages) much easier.
I'm willing to devote some time to improving it and I have already done so by adding some code generation abilities to it.
Here's my wish list:
1. A simple way to add support for custom (read "written by you")
controls. I think it might be really cool to only have to add a
function that returns a dict of the attributes that can be set on
the control, and then add the module that contains the control to
a list somewhere accessible from the XRCed GUI.
When I put together the ideas for SoC projects[1] I added a few for XRCed. This one I wrote up as:
"""
Refactor to make it easy to extend the tool to support new widgets, or new attributes for existing widgets. In other words, instead of needing to edit several modules to add or change support for one widget, convert to a plug-in or drop-in architecture where all of the meta-data needed for fully supporting a single widget is located in a single module that XRCed dynamically loads at start up.
"""
2. A graphic way to put controls on a container at a fixed position
with a fixed size. I even think this should be the default
behavior to ease the use of XRCed for first time users..
3. A way to define which event handlers the control should handle.
The code generator (pywxrc) will then be able to generate empty
overridable methods. This one is already on my list and will
hopefully be implemented soon.
4. Code generation for languages other than Python. I will probably
implement the C++ code generation, but maybe we should help our
wxRuby and wxPerl friends as well.
I also had this project idea:
"""
Refactor to make it easy to embed XRCed functionality into other applications, such as full fledged IDEs.
"""
I've put these ideas and the others on a wiki page so they don't get lost. Feel free to add new items to the list.
http://wiki.wxpython.org/index.cgi/XRCed_Wish_List
[1] Unfortunately wxWidgets was only allocated 3 projects by Google, out of 23 proposals, 14 of which had mentors assigned. None of the wxPython related projects made the cut. 
I guess next year I should register as a separate project organization instead.
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--
Robin Dunn
Software Craftsman
http://wxPython.org Java give you jitters? Relax with wxPython!