Re: A BOOST GUI Library

From: Chuck Messenger (cmessenger_at_[hidden])
Date: 2001-04-03 12:46:28

From: williamkempf_at_[hidden]

> > Cross-platform GUI's are a very messy branch of programming.
> > There are a host of platform-specific areas such a framework needs
> > to address, such as file systems, peristence, networking, etc.
> > So far, BOOST seems to have only touched on the edges of some
> > of these -- e.g. threading and directories.  wxWindows goes
> > all the way.
>
>Sorry, most of the mechanisms you mention are NOT part of a GUI
>framework. The fact that many GUI frameworks mistakenly include them
>does not change this fact.

As a practical matter, the reason you want a cross-platform GUI
framework is to write cross-platform apps, which means you need
all that other cross-platform stuff, too.

It is indeed very messy.  It's not really the sort of pure problem
which Boost libraries are mostly oriented toward.  It's more
like a huge collection of hacks -- standardized hacks.

Starting from scratch seems insane.  The problem space is just
too big and messy.

Hopefully, there will be a gelling of support behind one of the
existing frameworks.  I like wxWindows basically because it
seems to be quite active.  You get to leverage the efforts of
lots of other people.

However, some of the other systems look very interesting -- more
powerful, but less support.

>A Boost
>GUI would more than likely be a fresh product, not a "third party"
>library ported under the Boost distribution, but such a library needs
>to start with a design likely borrowed from another library(s).  Qt
>has a better design in many ways than wxWindows.

Maybe a better goal would be to push Boost into existing GUI
frameworks.  I, for one, would be very attracted to a GUI
framework which embraced Boost.  I imagine many other programmers
would be, too.

     - Chuck