wanting to try a GUI toolkit: needing some advice on which one to choose

[someone]

On Thursday, 27 May 2021 at 02:55:14 UTC, Adam D. Ruppe wrote:
> Well, you don't strictly have to use gtkd, you can always just 
> extern(C) define the stuff yourself (or only use them from 
> gtkd's generated files) and call them. But if you do use gtk, 
> I'd suggest just sticking to the gtkd wrapper.

Crystal clear.

On Thursday, 27 May 2021 at 02:55:14 UTC, Adam D. Ruppe wrote:
> But I hate gtk so I made my own thing from scratch on nothing 
> but X which might amuse you. (I loathe that useless wayland 
> trash and will never support it. X is so much better.)

No. It doesn't amuse me at all. X11 was/is a wonder in many 
respects. The problem with X11 nowadays is that it is getting 
abandoned. I don't recall the name right now, but I read an 
extensive article the past year (or the other one) in which its 
primary maintainer claimed it lost interest in it (or whatever) 
and the project lacks the resources to get well maintained and so 
and so. So the writing is on the wall. I think Wayland started 
its project seeking tear-less windows but evolved a far-cry from 
there. But like it or not, for the worst or the better, 
everything will be Wayland-centric/dependent a few years from 
now, relegating X11 to a niche. That's my two cents, which can be 
far away from reality, of course.

On Thursday, 27 May 2021 at 02:55:14 UTC, Adam D. Ruppe wrote:
> But since I also think css is bloated I'm just putting hooks in 
> the core so it is an optional feature, just like the xml and 
> script stuff. Turns out that was easier than fixing text bugs. 
> And besides people love their dark modes lol.

CSS was/is an excellent tech for rendering web pages while 
splitting data and style, at least, valid until CSS1. The latter 
CSS version are bloated to the bone. They were developed for the 
ad industry and not for viewing documents which is what the net 
was invented for to begin with. I think if early on the reference 
and commercial webs were developed separately we would end spared 
the XHMTL->HTML4 wars and everything related. CSS to render a 
desktop is overkill, no matter what. Gnome2 with all its 
shortcomings was snappy as hell.

On Thursday, 27 May 2021 at 02:55:14 UTC, Adam D. Ruppe wrote:
> Anyway if you can stand gtk, gtkd really isn't bad and its text 
> widget works. Just don't use the file dialog lololol.

The file dialog is one of the worse things indeed.

Let me clarify a bit:

I am not against innovation and/or change, quite the opposite, I 
love things improving all the time; what I can't bear is change 
for the sake of change, change because the developer/s is/are 
bored and this/that is trendy and sooo cool right now, 
engineering has a de-facto motto: if it works, don't fixit !

That being said, I think GUI design reached a climax between the 
Windows 95/98 and Windows XP era, everything that came afterward 
was, mainly, downhill. What Windows got right on that time-frame 
was the GUI, furthermore, the consistency of the GUI system-wide, 
all programs (errr, what now are called apps) behaved and looked 
the same way, that was the goal, you learned one app, you learned 
them all, nothing deviated from the GUI development guidelines, 
and what deviated was considered subpar. Even the documentation 
(excellent Microsoft manuals on dead-tree media, what-else) on 
GUI development, the what and what not to do was excellent. 
Microsoft got that right. After Windows XP came Vista, and from 
then on, it was primarily Microsoft that demolished all the 
advise published so far by itself -those were the Steve Ballmer 
years (developers ! developers ! developers !) and clearly marked 
a point of inflection.

The early 2000s brought us app skins, and with it, everything 
looked (and started to behave) differently, ending with monsters 
like Cannonical Unity GUI, and meanwhile, destroying perfectly 
working desktops such as gnome 2 (the epitome of user friendly 
design in linux in my view) with gnome 3, all justified on the 
basis that mobile/touch should be integrated to the same base 
instead of developing something specific for it. That left us 
with CSS rendering our desktops ala-browser-engines and 
everything evolved from snappy to quite-a-few-seconds-lag to open 
even a bare window.

End of rant. Excuse me. But I think the above clarifies what I am 
searching for for a GUI toolkit in D. After all, I landed on D 
for its speed besides its cleanliness/power/features.

On Thursday, 27 May 2021 at 02:55:14 UTC, Adam D. Ruppe wrote:
> My minigui is a thing of beauty. Behold:

I'll probably check it out tomorrow since I am going to bed right 
now.

Thanks for your detailed response and for taking your time to 
advise me. I really appreciate that 🙂 !