Re: [boost] Re: UI++ [was: GUI sublanguage; Re: GUI/GDI templatelibrary]

From: Rob & Lori (Rob.Lori_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-08-09 11:44:10

brock wrote:

>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Rob & Lori" <Rob.Lori_at_[hidden]>
>To: "Boost mailing list" <boost_at_[hidden]>
>Sent: Saturday, August 09, 2003 9:05 AM
>Subject: Re: [boost] Re: UI++ [was: GUI sublanguage;Re: GUI/GDI
>templatelibrary]
>
>[...]
>
>  
>
>>>I think that's a *good* thing.  Why doesn't the OS let you change
>>>it?  We'll use whatever excuse they're using. ;>
>>>
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>Well, Win32, for example, allows you to change this, but it requires you
>>handling much of the drawing of the control manually.  There has been
>>many times in my job that I've needed to tweak the way a control works
>>to fit our project better.  But if we just use native GUI controls then
>>users will be unable to modify this unless they dig down into the
>>platform specific GUI code.  But then of course this makes the that GUI
>>control platform specific!
>>    
>>
>
>It depends on what you need to change.  Hopefully our library can allow you
>to do simple things like changing the color of a button (which requires
>manual drawing in Win32). What types of things do you usually need to
>change?
>  
>
Yes, if we put in code that allows modifications such as changing the 
color of a button for all platform API's, then that would be a big help.

>>Sigh, it sounds like pretty much everyone is of this same opinion.  Sure
>>it makes a nice C++ interface, but it doesn't allow much extensibility,
>>    
>>
>IMO.
>
>You're right, but we can't succeed if we try to do everything at once.  The
>best we can do is make it easy to add in more features later.  Like one of
>us said (maybe me?) in an earlier thread, you won't be able to write Excel
>with this library :) (yet).
>  
>
Yeah, but it depends on what our goals are in the future.  If we just 
wrap platform API controls and add some extra tweaking capability (like 
changing button color as you mentioned) then that would work for a first 
version.  I guess I'm more worried about whether we are going to keep it 
like this or if we'll be moving to doing a Boost.Widget for layor 0 in 
the future.

I'm really excited about the possibilities for this library, and I'd 
like to make sure that users can extend the Boost.GUI to suit their own 
needs, while keeping such base goals as multi-platform support in tact.

Rob Geiman