Alan Gutierrez wrote:
* David Abrahams <dave@boost-consulting.com> [2004-12-29 13:52]:
Not different enough, IIUC. They're both subject to the same (shared) constraint on maximum number of window handles. To make a windows GUI framework scalable it must provide for that. Not every widget on the screen can afford to be an OS control or window, even when there are appropriate built-ins (consider a grid of spreadsheet cells). One approach might be to make them "ephemeral," i.e. conjure up the actual OS thingy only when you need to draw or process clicks there and then throw it away immediately or soon.
Yes.
In a more complicated UI, native controls are going to fail the application developer.
Materialization is a good strategy, but it doesn't address the problem of rendering. An OS rendered control taking part in the window heirarchy of the OS, displayed within a client area that has an application defined z-axis with overlayed (oh, can I borrow a term?) thingies, well that OS native control stomps all over the application rendering.
Can't you image the native controls into an offscreen buffer and then apply whatever transformations, masking, etc., that the framework likes in order to display it in the right context? -- Dave Abrahams Boost Consulting http://www.boost-consulting.com