[boost] Re: GUI/GDI template library

From: Philippe A. Bouchard (philippe_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-07-27 06:44:36

John Torjo wrote:

[...]

> That's great! Good luck!
> I think it will ve *very* hard to provide an interface that
> won't bind you to an underlying UI system. I'm quite interested
> in the development of this.
> 
> I'm trying to develop some UI library myself - but with a different
> goal in mind: sit on top of a framework (ex: WTL/ MFC), and make it
> easier to work with them - sending messages, etc. And also, simpler
> *creation* of windows. That's it!
> (my personal oppinion is that going further is not worth the trouble,
>  but I hope you'll prove me wrong)

Personnally what I would like to see is a program like this for the visual
part of the UI (this is highly simplified example):

// 2d, 3d or even 4d vectors:
typedef list<int> point;

// Basic widget: LineEdits, PushButtons, ...  Accepts operator >> & <<:
typedef list<point> widget;

// ScrollViews, ButtonGroups, ListBox, ...:
typedef list<widget> container;

// Window:
typedef list<container> window;

// Modal windows, popups or MDI window:
typedef list<window> application;

// Generic system list:
typedef list<application> desktop;

// Virtual desktops environment:
typedef list<desktop> server;

Or:

list< list< list< list< list< list< list<int> > > > > > > server;

Of course in this example I am not talking about MouseEvents, signal / slot
mechanisms, list<> / vector<> performance or widgets' special properties,
but in my experience containers like those would accelerate GUI development
because everyone knows this is how the backend should be written.  You get
the idea.

Philippe