Re: Unified libraries to allow porting code to other oses
- Posted by irv May 27, 2015
- 2468 views
Here is my thinking about graphical applications.
UI (User Interface) selection guide.
(1) Graphical Software: native, adopted, independent.
Native is "what comes with the operating system."
- For windows: what Microsoft gives you.
- For unix: GTK, QT, Enlightenment.
Advantages: nothing extra has to be installed, native look and feel.
Adopted is "what you add to make native graphics workable."
- For windows it could be wxWidgets, IUP, maybe GTK
- For unix it could be wxWidgets, IUP.
- Unix also allows a GTK system to have QT and others.
Advantages: UI becomes easier to program, can be multiplatform.
Disadvantage: extra software to install.
Independent is "your own graphical software."
- For windows: Java, Redy.
- For unix: Java, (? Redy).
Advantages: can be easy to program, can be multiplatform.
Disadvantages: extra software to install, unique look and feel.
(2) Toolkit: programmer interface to graphical software.
Bare metal or program graphics directly.
Painful...don't do it.
Toolkit is paired with graphical software.
Choice of graphics & toolkit becomes a matter of personal choice.
(3) IDE: UI layout program.
windows
- native: almost mandatory to have IDE
unix
- can program euGTK without IDE, can use Glade if desired
(4) Final considerations: size, complexity, personal choice.
Conclusion
You will never get one "true" UI for any system since there are too many subjective choices.
I agree, and I think you've summarized the situation much better than I could.
There's never going to be a consensus, and with so few people using Euphoria, if we took a vote, most likely each approach you mentioned would get about one vote.
I don't know what the minimum number would be to set up a stable working group, but I doubt we could do that for anything other than -perhaps- a re-designed win32lib.
