Re: Proposed standard GUI: Update 1

[chipr@niestu.com (Chip Richards)]

I suppose I should chime in on this thread, as I am working on a related
project.

In article <6jhras$pbm$3@plug.news.pipex.net>,
	"Nick Roberts" <Nick.Roberts@dial.pipex.com> writes:

> First, my apologies for not making any noise sooner than this: as ever, time
> is not my own!

A common affliction.  I suffer from it myself. <grin>

> Various existing systems have been suggested as a base: TeleUSE/TeleWindows
> (TeleSoft); UIMS; Screen Machine (OIS); Fresco; Qt (TrollTech); TASH, based
> on Tcl/Tk; Java JNI; Java AWT; Chiron; Amulet; Claw (R&R); and OpenGL/GLUT.
> Also the DGJPP mailing list has been mentioned, as well as the comp.graphics
> newsgroups.

I think it's a positive step to survey the existing offerings.  I doubt that
any of them will prove fully suitable, but knowing what the field offers is
essential.  We might someday hope to see a high-level abstraction that uses a
variety of existing toolkits as its "back-end", in the manner of WxWindows.
But the first cut (and possibly the only cut) should probably be stand-alone.

> In the meantime, I hope to be putting up my own skeletal design for this
> proposed standard onto a WWW site very soon (the next few days, hopefully).
> I can't make any guarantees on the time-scale, though: as ever, time is not
> my own! Please bear with me.

I look forward to seeing the announcement.

The reason I'm writing is that I'm working on a bit of an Ada GUI toolkit
myself.  It's an Ada translation of Steve Baker's "PUI", which is a more
advanced follow-up to SGI's "MUI", a widget set based on OpenGL and GLUT.

The advantage of the PUI design is that it is based on OpenGL, which is highly
portable--OpenGL (and GLUT) implementations exist for most Unix platforms, as
well as Microsoft OS's and (to some extent, at least) OS/2, Mac, and others.

The disadvantage of PUI is that it is based on OpenGL, which is a bit of
overkill if you are not doing 3D graphics, or are doing them without using
OpenGL.  It's also quite basic, not nearly as full-featured as most of the
others you've mentioned above.

My conversion is coming along quite nicely, although I'm having some
difficulty figuring out how to structure the packages due to inexperience with
OO under Ada.  I've gotten some good help from David Hoos, and will probably
need more before I'm through.

The code (both the original C++ PUI and the Ada conversion) is public domain,
so it's available for all to do with as they wish.  For reference, Steve's
original PUI web page is "http://web2.airmail.net/sjbaker1/pui/".  My Ada PUI
development page is "http://www.niestu.com/languages/oglada/apui/apui-dev.html". 

I don't see PUI serving as a general-purpose widget set, but it's small,
cheap, and will be ready to use shortly.  I plan to follow your project
closely, to see how much cross-pollination is possible.

-- 
Chip