Perl and GUI. Toolkit Comparison

Despite the large number of modules in CPAN, Perl distributions (Strawberry Perl, ActivePerl, MinGW Perl) cause some uncertainties, one of which is the choice of a graphical toolkit for building a GUI (graphical user interface). This will be discussed.

Personally, I stopped at ActivePerl from the company ActiveState . I also use the Komodo IDE and Perl Dev Kit for work.

So, I chose four main modules for working with GUIs that provide cross-platform functionality.

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Perl / Tk:
- is an interface to the library Tk . Works through DynaLoader / XS.
- object-oriented approach.
- outdated appearance.
- good documentation.
- not updated since 2007.



Sample program from the documentation:
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use Tk;
use strict;

my $mw = MainWindow->new;
$mw->Label(-text => 'Hello, world!')->pack;
$mw->Button(
-text => 'Quit',
-command => sub { exit },
)->pack;
MainLoop;


Tkx:
- interface to Tk . A bridge in the form of a Tcl interlayer is used.
- lower productivity, caused by the load of the second language.
- A different approach to programming. You need to know the language of Tcl.
- You can use third-party packages.
- “Native” design.
- is de facto basic in ActivePerl.
- there are tutorials.



Code example:
use Tkx;
my $mw = Tkx::widget->new(".");
$mw->new_ttk__button(
-text => "Hello, world",
-command => sub { $mw->g_destroy; },
)->g_pack;
Tkx::MainLoop();

WxPerl:
- WxWidgets graphic library.
- object-oriented interface.
- "native" design.
- larger file size.
- installation difficulties.



use Wx;
my $app = Wx::SimpleApp->new;
my $frame = Wx::Frame->new( undef, -1, 'Hello, world!' );
$frame->Show;
$app->MainLoop;

Gtk:
- uses Glib / Gtk.
- specific appearance.
- you can use themes.
- Has problems installing.
- problems in Windows, OSX.

Helloworld example
use Gtk2 -init;
my $window = Gtk2::Window->new ('toplevel');
my $button = Gtk2::Button->new ('Hello world');
$button->signal_connect (clicked => sub { Gtk2->main_quit });
$window->add ($button);
$window->show_all;
Gtk2->main;

Unfortunately, I did not manage to install and run this miracle. OS: Windows Vista.
Therefore, I will provide an official screenshot.


Personally, I think that the best option is to use either Tk (if the layout is not critical) or Tkx.