Boost logo

Boost :

From: Dave Abrahams (abrahams_at_[hidden])
Date: 1999-12-11 06:56:06


Hi All,

My company is considering releasing a general-purpose, cross-platform
windowing toolkit to boost (open source, of course). It should serve as a
basis on top of which a set of higher-level GUI tools could be developed. In
its current state the code has Win32 and GGI (a low-level Linux graphics
library) implementations. All the basics are there for a lightweight
implementation:

1. Simple yet powerful cartesian coordinate support (Point, Rectangle with
operators)
2. A coherent and easy-to-use imaging model (e.g. unlike Win32 GDI, there is
no "selecting objects into DCs", resource management hidden behind the
scenes, or even any "state" in a drawing environment).
3. Pixel maps and blitting with or without masks
4. Minimal text support
5. Rectangular windows with transparency (allows for any shape)
6. Minimal color support
7. Insulation from platform-specific header files (e.g. <windows.h> and
associated #defines stay out of the user naespace)
8. An easy way to access platform-specific implementation details when
neccessary to support platform-specific idioms.
9. Some preliminary event queueing support (needs work).

The implementations are less interesting than the interfaces, which I
believe provide a powerful set of basics while remaining extensible by not
committing too much in advance to ideas we are not sure may be needed or
supported on various platforms.

There is still work to be done in many areas, however. For some of these, I
"know" what the answer is; for others I have no clue. In all areas I would
be open to input. Before we do anything else, though, I'd like to gauge the
level of interest. Are there members of the boost community be interested in
developing and extending this work? We don't want to release the toolkit
just to have it languish and die...

-Dave


Boost list run by bdawes at acm.org, gregod at cs.rpi.edu, cpdaniel at pacbell.net, john at johnmaddock.co.uk