Re: [boost] GUI coordinate units (Was: GUI foundations)

From: Stefan Seefeld (seefeld_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-10-06 11:55:59

I think we agree that there are good reasons to want to
access device coordinates sometimes. So, whatever we do
to enable device independence, I think it mustn't completely
hide device-specific information.

Another question is that of compatibility. I don't think
the goal of boost::gui can be to develop a new GUI framework,
but rather, to define a modern API that is open for both,
a new and modern implementation, as well as existing 'native'
GUI wrappers.

Thus, the challenge is to find a way that allows us to develop
new GUIs in the spirit of Fresco, as well as wrap well established
GUIs, and have both be accessible through the same API.

Of course this isn't possible if the API is monolithic and rich.
This is the reason I suggested to modularize it such that
different implementations could adhere to the various sub-APIs
to various degrees, as application programmers would be free to
only use a subset of the APIs, with the result of either making
the application more portable to platforms using very differing
boost::gui implementations, or to have very fine-grained control
over its display. One clearly can't have both.

Regards,
                Stefan