I suggest then that you begin designing replacements for the PUI dialogs we have now in FG, perhaps that will convince Core that is finally time (after 5 years) to switch over to Canvas?
Well, I would have a while ago - but then again James really likes Qt, and I don't have the nerve to get into long arguments for yet another thing, I have quite enough hate-postings and mail as it is for not doing ALS like a couple of people want it to be for a while.
I haven't figured out dialogs despite all the wiki reading I did - either I am to much stupid, or the examples aren't clear enough.
It's not overly well documented - took me a bit to figure out how to catch mouse-actions on the canvas, but now the wrappers are basically there.
Why should OP erase all his work and learn canvas if he already has the hang of what he is doing now?
Wrong question - he should not.
Thread topics sometimes change to more general questions while the discussion is on - that's what happened here. If the purpose is to do one small dialog, do whatever you like. If the question is more generally - what skill should an aircraft developer acquire - yeah, learn canvas rather than PUI.
Nasal is widely used. Canvas dialogs is not.
That's a fact, but what do we conclude from that? Is it because canvas dialogs are ugly, or inferior to PUI - or is it because many people simply aren't aware of the option and have no examples to work from?
If it's the latter - posting such examples makes sense.
I used them because I can whip up an options dialog in 5 minutes without needing to learn anything new.
Let's say in the particular case of a list of checkboxes canvas dialogs are at a disadvantage, yes.
And lastly, what is this "widget" this word means small gadget or mechanical device.
It's a word for the elements of a dialog - checkboxes, radio buttons, buttons, dropdown-lists, text boxes etc. are all 'widgets'
Would you teach a C++ developer first about things such as object orientated, arrays, and stuff? Or start with a simple hello world to get them familiar?
Yes, actually if I'll ever get someone for a week who wants an introduction in coding, I'll first teach him how to think properly to design an algorithm and then how to translate that abstract concept into actual code. It would be the best way to learn - all else requires to unlearn bad habits.
PUI only needs you to know XML which you need to know anyways.
Oh so very wrong - how to change the text on a button in PUI runtime? How to populate a dropdown list in a PUI dialog runtime? For practically any problem beyond a list of checkboxes, you actually need to have a design idea in mind - and the PUI technology makes that very awkward. xml teaches you how to set parameters for existing design, not how to design stuff properly.
suddenly people think I am saying "Canvas is bad".
To be fair, you did comment on the performance of canvas vs. PUI and on the fact that there'd be no ready to use canvas structure - which draw me into correcting these statements specifically.
one consistent annoyance I've had here on FG. I am not allowed to have an opinion.
You're entitled to your own opinions, but not to your own facts. The cost of property I/O for example is a measurable quantity, we can test this on various systems and compare across architectures - we know how severe it is and when it matters because we have assembled the data. So you can't have an opinion about that which differs.
Whether canvas is a good thing to learn or not is a matter of judgement - there you can have an opinion.
If my opinion doesn't match, it is WRONG.
Have you been following the forum lately?
I got my usual share of abuse for pointing out to abassign that he must have some local config issue since no one else can reproduce what he's been posting.
So what makes you think you're getting special treatment?
I don't know - many people seem to like my aircraft so my must be doing something right.
Doesn't mean you can't occasionally be wrong. I've done lots of work in different areas of FG, and still now and then someone points something out to me which I've missed. Nothing bad about this.