Adding a wxPerl GUI to the twitter script: part 4 - Putting it all together

Note: this article is part of a series.

Today I've finished version 1.0.0 of twit_GUI.pl. Nothing fancy, I just added the Net:Twitter part from the console version of twit.pl to the existing User Interface. I can now post to twitter.com or identi.ca from a graphical interface Perl program. That's how cool I am.

New since version 0.0.2
I removed the event handling on EVT_TEXT_MAXLEN because I realized that I didn't need to display a message when I reached 140 characters. The fact that you cannot type anything after the limit is enough. Keeping the message would have been annoying in fact...

A "gentle" analysis from Perl::Critic made me change the way I was calling the open function.
Before:
open(LOGINFILE, $password_file)
After:
open(my $logfile_handle, '<', $password_file)

Explanation:
- The LOGINFILE file handle is dangerous because as such, LOGINFILE is declared as a global. It could already be used as another file's handle.
- The '<' second argument indicates that the file is open in read-only mode. It is easier to see that than in the previous writing and it avoids bugs for file names starting with '<' or '>' (see the full explanation).

I also replaced the double quotes (") by single quotes (') everywhere variable interpolation was not needed.
Speaking about quotes, I removed those surrounding the identifiers of the hash elements.
Speaking about hashes, I really enjoy how flexible they can be used for structuring your data. Take for example the %login hash in $this->{login}. It lets me organize data as such:

%login = {
      user_name => { twitter => "Twitter.com user name",
                     identica => "Identica user name"
                   },
      password =>  { twitter => "Twitter.com password",
                     identica => "Identica password"
                   }
}

And I can add to the hash construct as I need it. Of course, if not documented, I can see that hashes contructed in this manner could get pretty tough to maintain.

What's next?
There are improvements to be made to the twit_GUI script, especially concerning the password handling. Today I have a hard-coded path inside the script which is very ugly. I am not proud of myself but the Perl Iron Man's deadline is arriving soon and I want to stay in the contest ;)
I will apply the finishing touch in a next post.

I am not sure if I should keep the POD comments. I was thinking about throwing it all inside an "About" menu item. Maybe I can display the POD info directly in a MessageBox, in a reentrant fashion.

I will not plaster the walls of this blog with yet another listing but as always you can find all script versions on the DamienLearnsPerl's companion site.