What you could do is:
frame->add<gui::button>("Boost!"); frame->add<gui::textbox>("hello", 25, true);
Internally, they will map to new gui::button("boost") and new gui::textbox( "hello", 25, true)
Thus, there will NO copying whatsoever.
Or you could just build pimpl gui objects with shared reference semantics so people could copy them about naturally.
Sorry - I must be expressing myself pretty badly ;) What you just said - that's exactly what I meant. By "No copying whatsoevet" - I meant internally. Or in other words, a window class is not required to have copy-semantics. Best, John -- John Torjo -- john@torjo.com Contributing editor, C/C++ Users Journal -- "Win32 GUI Generics" -- generics & GUI do mix, after all -- http://www.torjo.com/win32gui/ -- v1.4 - save_dlg - true binding of your data to UI controls! + easily add validation rules (win32gui/examples/smart_dlg)