I have not read this whole thread, but near the beginning someone mentions that they like the Java Swing style, have any of you looked at the Juce C++ GUI library? It is GPL for free projects ($$$ for non-GPL). It does not use platform natural widgets, it draws everything itself, but it is very 'pretty', very fast, and I like many of the coding styles it uses (listener multiclassing and such, although I would prefer boost::function pointers though in the more simple cases). Not something we would really want to use since it does not blend into the native OS, but it might be a good design to look at. Also, what about binding wxWidgets instead, it is very platform based so it blends perfectly, it also has the universal backend so it can draw everything itself (best of both worlds?), the license is lgpl'ish, and I would absolutely love a more pure C++ interface for it and have finagled with the idea...