Re: [Boost-users] offtopic: std C++ / STL / boost-friendly UIframework?

Subject: Re: [Boost-users] offtopic: std C++ / STL / boost-friendly UIframework?
From: Andrew Holden (aholden_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-09-18 11:13:41

Peter Barker wrote:
>
>On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 3:19 PM, Ákos Maróy <akos_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> This is a bit of an offtopic question, but I wonder if there are
>> any / if there will be any standard C++ / STL / boost friendly UI
>> frameworks?
>>
>> When I look at UI libraries, like Qt or MS MFC, they all have their
>> own constructs to generic concepts that are well (and better)
>> covered in standard C++ / STL / boost. Like they have QArray,
>> CArray, QFile, etc. etc.
>>
>> This is bad for a number of reasons. For one, one has to write a
>> lot of adaptation code, like taking values from an STL iterator and
>> filling a QArray with it, or the other way around. The second, much
>> worse is that sloppy developers tend to stick with the UI-library
>> specific constructs, and thus dig themselves into non-portable (in
>> the case of MFC), or library- and license-specific (Qt which in
>> GPL) code. And they are usually quite resistant to reasoning on
>> using more generic and portable code for the same purpose.
>>
>> Thus I wonder - does anyone foresee a portable UI library which
>> would be based on standard C++ / STL / boost? By this I mean that
>> the generic constructs would be taken from here, and the UI library
>> would really only contain things specific to UIs?
>>
>>
>> Akos
>
> I'd be really interested in learning about this too! It's annoying
> trying to wean fellow developers off MFC's CString, CIntArray and
> the like and writing the conversion code.
>
> Pete

I haven't looked too closely, but Smartwin++ (http://smartwin.sourceforge.net/) might fit the bill for Windows.