Pyxis2 vs GadgetOS vs Tinkr2 vs Clix2 vs Glide

What are your experiences? What fit where and how?

Target platform is the G400/Raptor

Pyxis2 and Gadgetos are outdated and Gadgetos was never fully finished I think.
Tinkr2 and Clix2 will get Open Source soon.
Glide is already Open Source and the only one I used already.
I don’t like Glide too much but it’s working (mostly).
The big difference between Glide and Tinkr/Clix is as far as I know that Glide allocates a separate bitmap for each window, but Clix/Tinkr does not, and by this uses less resources if you instanciate multiple windows at a time.

Clix is a subset of Tinkr. Tinkr allows running multiple apps in parallel, Clix only one app after the other.

I think I can tell you more after the weekend.
Will dig into Tinkr/Clix (2).

Interesting… I’ve barely scratched the surface of Glide as of now, but with the power of the G400, I thought I might look into more graphical stuff… But I don’t know much about what’s out there…

What I have seen of Clix and Tinkr is that have a quite nice look in gfx ways.
Some controls of glide looks a bit old style and even bulky (like the checkboxes are huge and not scalable).
Also writing the xml files for glide is a pain, even if you use Visual Design Studio from Skewworks for it.
If I take the burden of coordinating the Clix/Tinkr project, I try to get the latest sources online somewhere during next week / weekend (and if Skewworks has no reason for a delay).

I’ve been using Glide now for a coupe of years. I get around the resource issue by creating the windows on the fly. I dispose of the previous window and then re-create the new one. My app has about 15 windows in total. If I create them all at startup, I run out of memory quickly, even with the G400 :slight_smile:

This idea worked well, even on a 200MHz ChipworkX but if you have a lot of controls on the screen, you do see a small delay. Saying that, since I managed to get this working with the G400 and my nice shiny new 5" capacitive touch LCD running at 800x480, it whizzes along nicely. Where before it took about 2-3 seconds to show my really busy main screen, it now takes less than 1 second on the G400.

The only downside to Glide it is the lack of an offline editor. The online Glide Designer is good but you need an internet connection to use it. Manually creating complex screens is very time consuming. :slight_smile:

I purchased Clix2 some time ago but never got around to switching over as the designer would often crash when I was working on screens for it so I gave up. With the impending release to open source, I am looking forward to getting my hands on the designer (I hope it is included) and getting it to work. It also does Glide, but again there are issues that need fixing)

@ Dave McLaughlin - you are correct. Glide is made to be Gary but it uses a lot of memory. But in G400, how do you run out of memory?! What is your screen size?

800 x 480

I could re-engineer this code to create them all at the start but this way works and to be honest Gus, with the speed of the G400 it’s no real issue to create the screens on the fly. The operator hardly notices as it’s very quick.

I beta tested Tinkr2 back when Thom was first developing it and I must say it was a pleasure to use compared to Glide. I found the Glide WYSIWYG designer to be useless. The Tinkr2 controls are very modern and Thom is the master of NETMF UI. This review is probably 1.5 yrs old but if I were developing something else with a UI, Tinkr2 or Gadgetos is where I would start.

@ Dave McLaughlin

The Clix/Tinkr Designer (Visual Design Studo) is Open Source and the source Code is available here http://www.skewworks.com/vds/

@ scardinale. Thanks, I’ve downloaded this and will see how I get on.

Pretty much all spot on. When I do eventually return to NETMF I plan to make everything always open source. There’s even a couple of fiddlybits I’ve been working on in secret that maybe I’ll send along once Tinkr is out in the wild.

My Raptor currently has a full DOS program with a pretty slick old school editor that handles things pretty well.

My goal for the project (when I return) is to target a specific device (the G400) and create an honest to goodness full NETMF PC. SBASIC will be bumped up and included.

…just don’t ask release dates. I’m currently running one company and about to become an exec in a second. Plus moving and expanding my family. Vaguely remember the notion of sleep. :wink:

I’m sure you’ll have created an app for that anyway! :slight_smile:

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@ Skewworks - Awesome. Glad to here things have turned around. So, is that a little Thom on the way?

Well, I’ve already got the two but no, not yet. We’re just planning at the moment. First we need the new house first. Hopefully that’ll be resolved this summer. :slight_smile:

Is there any chance SBASIC going open source with the first batch, together with Tinkr and Clix?

So, Pyxis2 and Gadgetos are no go (outdated/obsolete).

Tinkr2 are the way to go, if you want an OS/graphical environment with multiple modules/apps - and Clix2 when you just want to run a single graphic interface/single task?

@ Simon from Vilnius -

https://www.ghielectronics.com/community/codeshare/entry/603

A few bugs have been fixed and a few enhancements of SBASIC in https://www.ghielectronics.com/community/codeshare/entry/715

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