GWT Designer: some panels showing up blank

[James McCabe]

GWT Designer version: 2.3.2r36
Google Plugin: 2.3.3r36
GWT version: 2.30r36
Eclipse version: Helios Service Release 1, build 20100917-0705
JDK version: 1.6u26
OS version: Windows 7, 32-bit


When using CaptionPanel elements in GWT Designer, they tend to go
blank in Design View.
Sometimes on first creating them, their contents will show properly,
but then any change
to the template will cause everything to become invisible, forcing
designers here to work with
the XML.

I've tried switching templates to use VerticalPanel's instead of
CaptionPanel's, and
it is better, but if there are a lot of widgets in a VerticalPanel,
the last few widgets
still show up blank. I'm appending a sample template which has that
problem. The last ten
labels are invisible.

We depend a lot on GWT Designer here, so that is why I am posting. My
two colleagues are
having the same issues as me. I've been flipping between different
versions of GWT Designer,
and GWT, but can't shake the problem. I've also tried increasing the
memory available to Eclipse
and it makes no difference.

I hope Mr Clayberg will be able to look at this.

James



<!DOCTYPE ui:UiBinder SYSTEM "http://dl.google.com/gwt/DTD/xhtml.ent">
<ui:UiBinder xmlns:ui="urn:ui:com.google.gwt.uibinder"
xmlns:g="urn:import:com.google.gwt.user.client.ui">

<g:VerticalPanel>
<g:Label text="New Label"/>
<g:Label text="New Label"/>
<g:Label text="New Label"/>
<g:Label text="New Label"/>
<g:Label text="New Label"/>
<g:Label text="New Label"/>
<g:Label text="New Label"/>
<g:Label text="New Label"/>
<g:Label text="New Label"/>
<g:Label text="New Label"/>
<g:Label text="New Label"/>
<g:Label text="New Label"/>
<g:Label text="New Label"/>
<g:Label text="New Label"/>
<g:Label text="New Label"/>
<g:Label text="New Label"/>
<g:Label text="New Label"/>
<g:Label text="New Label"/>
<g:Label text="New Label"/>
<g:Label text="New Label"/>
<g:Label text="New Label"/>
<g:Label text="New Label"/>
<g:Label text="New Label"/>
<g:Label text="New Label"/>
<g:Label text="New Label"/>
<g:Label text="New Label"/>
<g:Label text="New Label"/>
<g:Label text="New Label"/>
<g:Label text="New Label"/>
<g:Label text="New Label"/>
<g:Label text="New Label"/>
<g:Label text="New Label"/>
<g:Label text="New Label"/>
<g:Label text="New Label"/>
<g:Label text="New Label"/>
<g:Label text="New Label"/>
<g:Label text="New Label"/>


</g:VerticalPanel>
</ui:UiBinder>

[Eric Clayberg]

There are two issues here. The first appears to be a issue with WebKit not properly rendering CaptionPanels all the time. GWT Designer uses WebKit for all widget rendering and simply shows you what WebKit generates (for better or worse). We are looking in to possible work arounds as we have had to work around numerous WebKit problems like this in the past.

As to the second problem with the VerticalPanel, I tried your examples and it worked just fine on my end. I suspect this may be a known issue with physical display size as described here. How big is your physical display? We usually see the sort of truncation/clipping you describe when part of the panel is outside the bounds that would fit on the physical display. This is a know OS limitation. Using a larger display (either physical or virtual) can solve the problem. An even better approach would be to break the panel up into smaller sub panels that are each small enough to fit within the physical screen boundaries.