Honestly, I hate it. Every time, I come across it, I end up getting to a point where I want to shoot myself. I had this moment today yet again. This time in the context with trying to write a very simple extension for Firefox. I mentioned before that I am an open-source contributor for the Mozilla Foundation, so for those one or two people who read this blog, it may come as no surprise that I also try to write other stuff for them, as well.
The Graphical User Interface (GUI) for Mozilla is created using a specific type of XML (Extensible Mark-up Language) called XUL (XML User Interface Language) and the logic is done using JavaScript. Maybe it is, because I am not interested in design and have no mind for, but everytime I try to do a GUI, I get bored and so disinterested, it is not even funny anymore. I am so much more interested in writing the actual logic. The stuff that does things.
GUI writing is repetitive and because there is so much of it, it takes ages to get into it. I get frustrated, because I know what I want to achieve and then about an hour or two later, I finally manage to get something implemented that somehow resembles what I want. I say "somehow resembles", but it is never in the exact right place or is somehow "off". It is a source of constant aggravation to me.
That's where WYSIWG Editors come in handy. Unfortunately, in this case, there aren't many decent and well maintained XUL Editors out there. I found that XUL Gear did not work on my PC, so I settled for XULExplorer. It's decent, but obvious that it is a one man effort.
Ok, enough whingeing about it. Back to it. If I ever get this finishes, I will write about it.
