I love thinlets, love them. I know there limitations, which is the best place to be, set the right expectation from your third party API, and you'll be happy. Thinlet's not only let me build a gui for my blogging editorial system, but is also one of the most logical ways to do a prototype GUI.
I've managed to knock up a working GUI, from scratch, in half an hour, ok so no back end to it, but it is wonderful for going back to the eventual user and getting early feedback on the direction a project should take, without eating into valuable hours on the train.
Now, I have to work out which the best place to submit my thinlet changes are, as thinlets do seem to have three forums, and they ignored my posting to the main website, perhaps a sourceforge development forum posting will do the trick, hmm..
Limitations, I guess the main thing is not being able to use regular swing controls inside of a thinlet JPanel, not a big issue for most, I guess, but it does sort of mandate the eventual layout I give to a GUI. Unless someone can correct me. Just means that top half of my screen will be a thinlet controlled panel, and the bottom half a JEditorPane, with funky looking search results.
|
30 Jun 2003
