WPFfor d

[Jacob Carlborg]

On 2013-02-18 21:10, Adam Wilson wrote:

> Indeed it is a massive undertaking, but platform independence is KEY to
> making this work for D because D itself is platform independent.
> Building on-top of native kits comes with it's own complexities too. So
> kits have things that others don't, so you end up with a very small set
> of available widgets, AND no way to make new ones, short of huge amounts
> of custom coding. You also run into layout problems as you can specify a
> single size for all widgets, they have different paddings and margins so
> the UI never looks right outside of the UI system the software was
> designed on (for example the KDE widgets are very different sizes from
> GNOME).

I haven't run into any problems with different sizes of widgets using 
DWT/SWT. Do you think DWT/SWT just lay out widgets with standard 
behavior? The code contains a huge amount of configuration to make the 
widgets behave the same on all platforms. Setting values, overriding 
rendering functions an so on.

Of course you can make new ones. Perhaps not as easy. But I see no 
reason why you couldn't add a layer on top make it just as easy.

The custom tool kits always invent their own ways of doing things, 
breaking with the rest of the OS. The user then just gets confused when 
one thing works in one application but not in the other.

> The beauty of WPF/Silverlight/WinRT XAML, is that it looks the same no
> matter where you're running. I understand that there are purists out
> there who believe that you should always use the OS widgets, but in
> today's fractured environments, it's just not realistic from a UI design
> perspective anymore.

It only runs on Windows.

> XAML-type systems have the same thing in common with HTML/CSS that
> EVERYONE loves right now, with a little bit of design effort, they can
> automatically reflow themselves for any device. Like it or not, the OS
> widgets are a hold over from the pre-mobile era. How many people
> actually use the default OS widget skin for HTML buttons?

If you want to build serious applications that take full advantage of 
the platform, that never works. Just look at iPhone and iPad, they have 
different widgets even though they're so similar.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg