GUI library for D

[Matthias Pleh]

Am 05.04.2011 00:35, schrieb Alvaro:
> El 04/04/2011 23:51, Matthias Pleh escribió:
>> Am 04.04.2011 23:34, schrieb Daniel Gibson:
>>> Am 04.04.2011 23:27, schrieb Matthias Pleh:
>>>> was: [GSoC] Container proposals by Ishan and Christian
>>>>
>> [snip]
>>>>
>>>> This were the requirments for the GUI library:
>>>> - Corss-platform (Win/linux)
>>>
>>> Don't forget Mac OSX.
>> I just listed the requirments in our company, but you're rigth. We must
>> support at least the three main platforms Win/linux/OSX
>>
>>> Also note that on Linux there are two widely used toolkits, GTK and Qt,
>>> and that QT is better in emulating GTK than the other way round (you can
>>> let GTK use the current QT theme or something, but it'll still use the
>>> GTK filepicker etc. QT's GTK emulation is better and uses the real GTK
>>> filepicker).
>> that's true
>>
>>>
>> [snip]
>>>
>>> I don't know if wee need yet another GUI library.
>> I have not said, that it must be create a completly new library.
>> We just have to find out, what are the requirments for the D community,
>> and how can we achieve that.
>> Whe have mainly 4 options:
>> - support an existing project and help to meet our requirments
>> - fork an existing project and advance it to our requirments
>> - port a library from another language and advance it, to meet better
>> the D coding style
>> - create a new library (which also can be based on a older abandoned
>> project)
>>
>>> Are you sure Qt and DWT aren't good enough?
>> As I mentioned in my post, I couldn't assure the others. Not every
>> decision-maker base his decisions on pure technical arguments, sometimes
>> it's just his gut feeling or the cleaning lady's advice, who knows :)
>>
>> °Matthias
>
> Why do you say "it must be a completely new library"? Why don't the
> existing ones fit?
No, see above, supporting an existing library would also fit.

>
> I last week tried gtkD, both on Linux and Windows. Quite nice, only I
> don't really like how it looks on Windows, that it can't use the native
> controls. And then there is QtD and wxD (from wxWidgets) both using
> native controls.
>
> Anyway I think I know what you mean by "the D coding style". All those
> are direct ports/bindings that retain their original style and don't
> really take advantage of D's facilities.
Yes exactly. The argument by others was, that a community which is not 
able to create their own library, coded in their own style, will not 
survive.

>
> For instance, in gtkD (QtD probably too, haven't looked at it), classes
> have classic functions for accessing and modifying "properties", like
> window.setTitle("Find"); w=window.getWidth(). But D provides real
> @properties. That could be improved to window.title = "Find";
> w=window.width; Etc, etc.
>
> The use of properties, delegates for event handlers, D's Unicode
> strings, etc. could certainly be improved in libs like those. But anyway
> they have done a great job in providing D with working GUI APIs.

Don't get me wrong. GtkD perfectly meets my personal taste and I would 
have used this library for our project. But others are more cautios and 
have really strong requirments for such a projects (Note, this is one 
big project with much more than 500.000 LOC), so we _already_ have 
choosen C++/Qt !!

I think other companies will have similar decision. So, I think, to help 
D to get more accepted in the buisiness world, one requirement would be 
a good GUI library.

°Matthias