Re: Layout question

From:
"Andrew Thompson" <andrewthommo@gmail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.java.programmer
Date:
16 Jan 2007 22:45:11 -0800
Message-ID:
<1169016311.751566.41210@q2g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>
nukleus wrote:

I am having a lil problem here with someone else old code.
It uses Frames (all AWT code, no javax stuff).
and it does not use Layouts.


:-( The person that made that decision, should
be soundly flogged.

When i tried to add a menu, i noticed that it behaves differently
on different compilers. In some cases some text fields get obscured
by the menu and things like that.


Null layouts can be broken by being dsiplayed
on a different OS, or with a VM where the default
text size is configured larger, or smaller, or
many other reasons. The code is fundamentally
flawed and 'fragile'.

Question: can i get away with not using layouts?


...hmm. Can you afford to lock your end users into
a particalur VM, with particular font sizes*, on one
specific OS?

* Which might cause accessibility problems for
anyone that requires (e.g.) 'large text'.

There is a lot of code to rewrite as there are hundreds
of various user entries setting various parameters.


Yes, but then, as you have already noted - any change to
this fragile code causes problems, further developement
of the existing application will cost a great deal more,
in trying to get the altered code to work 'correctly'.

Given the complexity of the GUI, it might be better
to look to a system that generates the GUI 'on-the-fly',
but uses layouts to achieve the result.

Andrew T.

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