[boost] Re: boost Windowing Toolkit

From: Dave Abrahams (abrahams_at_[hidden])
Date: 1999-12-11 13:27:09

> Are you talking about a full-fledged GUI toolkit, or a lower-level
> windowing toolkit from which someone else could build a full-fledged
> GUI toolkit?

A "full-fledged GUI toolkit" is not a well-defined term. You probably mean
something which incorporates all of the following:

1. An application framework
2. Standard control components
3. Some file handling
4. Persistence for GUI objects
5. Some kind of view layout editor
6. Font pickers
7. Color pickers
8. Interapplication communication
9. Scripting
10. Object collaboration
...etc...

What I am proposing does not include any of the above, but provides a
paradigm on top of which all of the above can be implemented fairly easily.

> Sure, it would be wonderful to have a boost.org portable C++
> full-fledged GUI toolkit.  But lots of people have tried; see
> www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Vista/7184/guitool.html for a
> listing.  None have caught on.  Why?  My guess is that it is much
> harder that it looks.

Yes, I've done extensive work in this area before; it can be hard. I'm
familiar with the list you quote.

Some of the reasons nothing has caught on, IMO, are:
1. Dominance of certain platform APIs (nothing to do about that). Usually
people start to look at cross-platform GUI libraries when they discover they
have to port what they've already got working.
2. Existing attempts are hard to understand and port
3. Existing attempts are closely tied to a single API's paradigm
4. Poor use of C++; interfaces are difficult to use (safely).
5. Licensing!!

> And it looks hard enough at that.  It would be
> a very large project, and would roll on and on in time.

I am proposing to provide an interface (and some implementation) for the
fundamentals only. I don't believe that such a toolkit must be built as one
huge, monolithic entity. Each of the items enumerated at the top of this
message can be seen as a small(ish) project. In fact, I think this is a
problem with existing toolkits: too much integration!

> So while I am personally very interested in such a project, I also
> think it needs to be approached very, very carefully.

I agree. The greatest risk is that we will work on this and nobody will
care.

-Dave