Re: [Chicken-users] cross-platform gui toolkit

[Brandon J. Van Every]

felix winkelmann wrote:
> Hi!
>
> Something that we desperately need, IMHO, is a cross-platform GUI
> toolkit. Several people have mentioned this at various times and for
> plain application-delivery beyond POSIX functionality some sort of
> GUI will likely to make chicken more usable.
>
> It should be easy, dumb, straightforward. Simple, traditional 
> event-handling,
> a core set of easy-to-port widgets, a small and simple API. Backends to
> various existing gui toolkits (Gtk, Qt, FLTK, Win32(?)) should be 
> supported
> using a greatest common divisor aproach. 

And why would you prefer a little bit of every toolkit, as opposed to 
picking 1 toolkit and doing a good job wrapping all its functionality?  
If you target every toolkit out there, then it'll be capable of very 
little.  Too trivial for more than toys.

> More funky abstractions can
> be built on top of that and eggs could provide more specialized widget
> sets, particular to a specific GUI backend.

This reminds me of complete total PITA design like Xlib / Xt / Motif.  
Been there, done that.  Don't do it.  The results will suck.


> I have a good deal of Qt experience, a bit of FLTK and generally not
> enough resources to create this on my own (surprise!). I also am unable
> to do any windows-related coding.
>
> Would there be someone interested in taking this up or join me with
> such an undertaking?

It's suicide.  Bind Qt.  It doesn't matter if Qt is not all things to 
all people.  It has a community behind it, which will cause growth of 
Chicken.  You dabble a little in every GUI out there, and you have nothing.


Cheers,
Brandon Van Every