Adam Badura wrote:
I am interested in such a library too (now it is the main reason I offen use Java instead of C++) so I would like to help to project such a library and then to implement it. I have a little experience in OWL, some in Java GUI, MFC and some more in Win API. Unfortunattly I didn't even use (seriously) other platform then Win32/Intel (as C++ compiler I use Borland C++ 5.5, Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003, Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003), so I can only write part for Win. What you say?
I too like the Java GUI framework. Especially, the layouts and constructor-creates-a-window features make it possible to rapidly produce a GUI. I tried to make attempts in this direction a while ago, but there are numerous issues. Not only do you need to consider the OS you are targetting (Windows, Linux, MacOS, OS/2, ...), but also what GUI library you are targetting (Qt, Motif, John Torjo's Win32 framework, Win32 API, MFC, WTL, ...). Do you go for a unified coordinate system (Windows and Mac have different coordinate orientations, so do you transform?) What colour model do you use (RGB, CMY, HSV)? Can you convert between them? Do you have a standard colour set (like in HTML)? What event dispatching mechanism do you use (message maps, signals/slots, boost::signal, boost::function)? Are you going to write yet another Windows to C++ layer when ATL/WTL does it *a lot* better than you could do (without ripping the ATL/WTL logic)? What about other OSes? I would say that leveraging the base API for an OS (PalmOS, Windows, GDK, ...) should be avoided -- there are libraries already available that do this. I would suggest using the C++ frameworks as the base line for developing a C++ GUI framework. That way, you can have a thin layer on top of the framework. On top of the thin layer, you could then add support for features like layouts and constructing a window *creates* that window. You could then do something like: int gui_main( int argc, const char ** argv ) { boost::smart_ptr< gui::main_frame > frame( new gui::main_frame( "Hello World" )); frame -> resize( 300, 250 ); frame -> show(); frame -> Invalidate(); // Use an ATL/WTL specific feature return 0; } There is then the issue of supporting window-based objects (that consume window/GUI resources), windowless objects (those that don't) and custom/owner drawn components. Can you mix native components (e.g. a WTL splitter) with the generic framework in *both* directions? - Reece Haston Dunn Software Engineer, Sophos www.sophos.com