Re: Native widgets (was: Re: So, honestly, is GNUStep a viable development option?)

[Mark Grice]

> I don't agree here. Using native file chooser or other common dialog
> panels will be break the look and feel of a GNUstep application. OK, you
> may not like this look and feel, but at least within an application it
> should be consistent.

Honestly? If an application has a look and feel that is completely
different from every other application "breaking" it's look and feel
is probably a good thing.

> It would be fairly easy to add native dialog panels on windows, but how
> would you do it on Unix systems? We have different ones for KDE and
> Gnome, other environments don't even provide a shared one. What kind of
> consistency would we gain by using a KDE (or QT) file chooser in a Gnome
> environment?
>

This is more than just WIndows, though. You can add Mac to the mix.
Yeah, I know that most people who develop only on Mac would use Cocoa
not GNUStep... but I think a lot of people who will choose GNUStep
want a cross-development platform. And if I HOPE to get my application
accepted by a Mac-Bigot (read that almost anyone who uses a MAC) it
DAMN well better look like the apps they are used to seeing.

I'm not much of a hard-core coder, and I have not looked at your
libraries. But it SEEMS to me that I can have an API call that
abstracts me from the back-end, and then I can switch it either by a
runtime flag, or a compile time flag.

When I was with Neuron Data, our cross-platform GUI could emulate any
look on any system (if using our widget set) or switch to using the
native look and feel -- all with a run-time flag. It ran on Mac,
Windows, Unix, and even OS/2!

Isn't something like this possible? Then I could have Gnome Look and
feel on Gnome, QT Look and feel there, Mac look and feel on a
mac...etc.

>Nicolas Roard wrote:
>I'm not saying we should _only_ use "native" file dialogs -- because
>then we'd have the problem of deciding what's a "native" dialog on
>platforms that use more than one toolkit -- as you say, a KDE file
>chooser in GNOME would be pointless.

>What I'm simply advocating is having the choice to use native dialogs
>rather than the GNUstep ones :)
>Eg, load a bundle that will provide native dialogs facilities, a
>bundle implementing Win32 dialogs, or KDE dialogs, or GNOME dialog,
>etc.
[snip]
>For instance, some (native) file dialogs provides you with:
>- favorites
>- network access
>- previews
>- etc.

I couldn't agree with this more.