Re: [boost] BOOST GUI Library

From: Michael D. Crawford (crawford_at_[hidden])
Date: 2001-04-02 22:53:34

Might I suggest that a useful approach for Boost to take in making a GUI
library would be to create a number of reusable components that would be
useful to anyone writing any kind of application framework.

Since he released ZooLib, its author Andy Green has had some interest in doing
this sort of thing, making a low-level library for use in application frameworks.

While some application frameworks have advantages over others, choosing a
particular one sets some major design decisions in stone from the very start
of a project.  It is advantageous that there should be a number of different
frameworks so that the different alternatives can be explored and possibly be
readily used.

But every application framework author faces the same issues when they set out
to write a new one or bind to a new platform - one common thing everybody does
is write a wrapper of some sort around operating-system-specific windows.

Another example that would be useful to any GUI developer would be the bitmap
iterators I'd like to develop.  While I will be writing mine for ZooLib, one
could make such things adaptable to any bitmap definition using a traits
parameter to a template, and make adapters to enable their use in any
application framework.

I haven't looked at it yet, but the Netscape Portable Runtime looks like it
would be this sort of thing too:

http://www.mozilla.org/docs/refList/refNSPR/

it provides platform-independence to non-GUI operating system facilities, as
described on this page:

http://www.mozilla.org/docs/refList/refNSPR/moddesc.html

Mike
-- 
Michael D. Crawford
GoingWare Inc. - Expert Software Development and Consulting
http://www.goingware.com/
crawford_at_[hidden]
   Tilting at Windmills for a Better Tomorrow.