At 12:10 PM 3/4/2004, David Turner wrote:
... A button in one window isn't necessarily the same thing as a button in another window; just as a bold font in one document isn't necessarily the same as a bold font in another.
I'd rewrite that as "The implementation of a button in one window isn't necessarily the same thing as the implementation of a button in another window..." To modify Dave's example to make a point: button OK_button("OK"); window_one("Warning: now entering twilight zone one") [ text_field("my favorite color is:"), OK_button | button("cancel") | attribute_x(1) ] window_two("Warning: now entering twilight zone two") [ text_field("my favorite color is:"), OK_button | button("cancel") | attribute_x(2) ] Perhaps the implementation of OK_button in window_one is very different from window_two. But they both have OK_buttons, and at the interface level these are the same button.
One cannot say in general that elements can be exchanged between documents. Similarly, one cannot say in general that widgets can be exchanged between windows.
I understand that the implementation details can't be exchanged. But we aren't taking about implementations of buttons, we are talking about the abstract concept of an OK_button. That certainly could be transferred, couldn't it? More importantly, you could build up a widget library which could be used regardless of the target window. Sorry if I'm missing something here; I'm not much of a GUI programmer. --Beman