[boost] Re: boost Windowing Toolkit

From: Bill Klein (bill_at_[hidden])
Date: 1999-12-12 12:08:27

Hello,

> >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!!

>Agreed. My list of reasons is virtually identical to yours.

There's another reason why some portable windowing class
libraries have not caught on.

Does your toolkit provide support for standard controls
(buttons, menus, etc)? From what you're saying (correct
me if I'm wrong), it sounds like you provide lower level
drawing functions only and expect control classes to be
written on top of these. My issue with libraries that
take this path is that they lose the native platform's
look and feel. If they try to get it to behave the same
as the controls native to the platform, it usually ends
up even worse...

I realize this isn't an issue for everybody. On UNIX,
there is no standard look, so as long as what you do is
clean, you're all right. On Windows though, if your
program doesn't feel right you're in trouble. Obviously
won't matter for something like a specialized scientific
application or a program created for in-house use, but
if your audience is large it's a very serious issue.

You mention that there is no font picker or color picker.
Same question as before, do you want these to be
implemented on top of what you already have, or based on
the platform's native support?

Just to make things clear, I'm *very* interested in
seeing a portable windowing toolkit in boost. I started
creating my own at one point but eventually let it go
due to lack of time. If your toolkit was something I
felt I could use, I would be glad to contribute all I
could.

-Bill Klein <bill_at_[hidden]>