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Re: [Chicken-users] cross-platform gui toolkit
From: |
Brandon J. Van Every |
Subject: |
Re: [Chicken-users] cross-platform gui toolkit |
Date: |
Mon, 05 Feb 2007 01:30:29 -0800 |
User-agent: |
Thunderbird 1.5.0.9 (Windows/20061207) |
felix winkelmann wrote:
If I had a simple, GUI toolkit running on Linux, OS X and Windows, binds
native widgets,
Why native widgets? What's important about that? As a game developer,
this fetish has been very difficult for me to relate to. Games all want
to distinguish how they look, not look like the same game. I can
understand having menus with roughly the same stuff in roughly the same
places on every OS. But people have been doing that for quite a number
of years now, it's not an aesthetic problem.
In fact, what I've typically wanted out of the big bloated GUI toolkits,
and where at last count they all failed, is I wanted my widgets
skinnable. Or even shapeable. But accountants don't need that sort of
thing, so even at the OS level, the support for it wasn't so good.
Granted I wanted things to run on Windows 2000 and that's getting long
in the tooth to worry about anymore. But I'm still using Windows 2000.
Microsoft has added zero value since then, so why move on?
has a simple basic graphics API (OpenGL would be ideal),
I fear for OpenGL on Windows.
is smaller than 1-2 MB,
provides text-editing (multiline), buttons, images, frames, checkboxes,
and a couple more widgets, simple menus, then I'd be happy.
FLTK could be the one, but is a bit flaky
And there's actually something rock solid out there? Chicken doesn't
even have automated nightly builds or testing suites. "It has bugs"
especially is not a valid excuse in open source. You can contribute
bugfixes and feature improvements to other communities. It's a lot more
sane than NIH.
There are reasons to decline other people's software though. When I
look at OpenGL windowing toolkits, I decline the ones written in C++,
and the ones that don't have active communities. There's just no value
in 1..3 guys barely getting anything done, almost never making releases,
and having a mailing list where crickets chirp. CPW and GLFW both have
poachable C starter code, but that's about all. I'm not going to go try
to save their communities. The leadership and energy simply isn't
there. We're better off building a community from scratch here.
In contrast, WxWidgets, Gtk+, and Qt all have vast communities, far
outstripping the size of our little Chicken enclave. We're small time,
small potatoes, and pretty immature compared to them. It would be great
to tap into their resources. Unfortunately, they may be ossified in
their political goals. I wouldn't bank on "smaller is better" getting
much play in those circles.
FLTK could be have the right focus on size. But it is written in the
wrong language, C++. You could work on Chicken's C++ capabilities,
using FLTK as the test target.
and why should a Linux user
that has Gtk installed hunt down the proper FLTK version?
Why should they bother to install Chicken or CMake? It's a lazy
argument for lazy people.
I simply don't believe that there is the perect one. There is no
perfect software.
That doesn't imply that everything should be your own software.
Cheers,
Brandon Van Every
- Re: [Chicken-users] cross-platform gui toolkit, (continued)
- Re: [Chicken-users] cross-platform gui toolkit, Brandon J. Van Every, 2007/02/05
- Re: [Chicken-users] cross-platform gui toolkit, felix winkelmann, 2007/02/05
- Re: [Chicken-users] cross-platform gui toolkit, minh thu, 2007/02/05
- Re: [Chicken-users] cross-platform gui toolkit, felix winkelmann, 2007/02/05
- Re: [Chicken-users] cross-platform gui toolkit, Kon Lovett, 2007/02/05
- Re: [Chicken-users] cross-platform gui toolkit, felix winkelmann, 2007/02/06
- Re: [Chicken-users] cross-platform gui toolkit, Kon Lovett, 2007/02/06
- Re: [Chicken-users] cross-platform gui toolkit,
Brandon J. Van Every <=
- Re: [Chicken-users] cross-platform gui toolkit, felix winkelmann, 2007/02/05
- Re: [Chicken-users] cross-platform gui toolkit, Matthew Welland, 2007/02/05
- Re: [Chicken-users] cross-platform gui toolkit, Mario Domenech Goulart, 2007/02/05
- Re: [Chicken-users] cross-platform gui toolkit, Brandon J. Van Every, 2007/02/06
- Message not available
- Re: [Chicken-users] cross-platform gui toolkit, Brandon J. Van Every, 2007/02/06
- Re: [Chicken-users] cross-platform gui toolkit, John Cowan, 2007/02/06
- Re: [Chicken-users] cross-platform gui toolkit, Brandon J. Van Every, 2007/02/06
- Re: [Chicken-users] cross-platform gui toolkit, felix winkelmann, 2007/02/06
- Re: [Chicken-users] cross-platform gui toolkit, Daniel Sadilek, 2007/02/06
- Re: [Chicken-users] cross-platform gui toolkit, felix winkelmann, 2007/02/06