Well, if it's going to happen I think it would be best if the Boost community does this as part of the library, rather than requiring it's users to impelent this EVERY single time they want to use the Boost GUI lib for a platform it doesn't already support.----- Original Message ----- From: "Rob & Lori" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Boost mailing list" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, August 08, 2003 4:10 PM Subject: Re: [boost] Re: UI++ [was: GUI sublanguage; Re: GUI/GDI templatelibrary]
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However, this means that porting the GUI library to use, say, DirectX
would be MUCH tougher. Basically you'd need to create EVERY single GUI
control by scratch. If we instead created the controls by scratch in
the library just using an abstract draw rectangle, etc, then not only
would porting to DirectX would be simple, but it would also be much
easier to port to other platforms as well.
Somewhere along the line someone is going to have to create EVERY single GUI
control from scratch if you don't use native widgets. I don't want to be
that someone :)
The thing is, if you are making an application that doesn't want nativeI don't see the need for totally custom widgets for a Direct X game. You may want a custom look and feel, which could be accomplished if the Boost GUI lib was written is such away that you could change the 'skin' to match a particular platform or even allow you to write a custom skins.
widgets - maybe you're making a game under Direct X - you probably want
totally custom widgets (not boost widgets). If we are doing a good job of
design - our layers are well seperated and encapsulated - it should be easy
for you to use the higher level parts of the library on top of your own
custom widgets. We would also need (as Mr. Bouchard suggested) a cross
platform set of drawing tools.
However, the general function the widget controls should be the same whether for a game or application.
And this brings up another point. What if users DO want to change how a control functions? If we use the native widgets, users are unable to change this. Instead, they'd have to write platform specific code to create an entirely new widget, and this must be done for all platforms you would use this contorl in. However, if Boost imeplements controls from scratch then all users would have full control over how a control functions and it would be the same for all operating systems.
I agree that we should concentrate only on base widgets that are common to all/most platforms, but keep in mind that sooner or later we'll need to manually create controls for other platforms. Manually implementing these controls for all platforms is a lot of extra work and leads to issues where one "custom" control performs differently on different platforms.Also, keep in mind that building our own controls means we'll have
instant support for certain controls that may not exist in other
platforms, such as the common tabbed user interface, or dockable control
bars used in Visual Studio.
Yes, we have to implement from scratch those controls we want to support
when they are not on a given platform. We should concentrate on those that
are common to all (targeted) platforms first, IMHO.
Think of it this way. Say we want to implement our own custom list controlI can understand that. We COULD design them in such a way that, when using the Windows version, it would dynamically detect which operating system the user is running and use the appropriate skin. Of course, Windows XP allows users to use any type of style they want, so I guess this really isn't a solution.
under windows. Do we make it look like a Win 2000 list control or XP?
When the user finally upgrades to Win 200X your software looks immediately
dated anyway.
Either way we go there are pros and cons, it's just my opinion that building the controls from scratch will give us much more control and flexibility and make it easier to port to other platforms.
Rob Geiman
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