[Sussex] GUI toolkits

[Thomas Adam]

On Wed, Aug 11, 2004 at 01:25:22PM +0100, Geoff Teale wrote:
> 
> Well on the subject of toolkits, the following thoughts:
> 
> * If you're doing OO code then Qt is perhaps the best equipped, though I
>   have no idea about the perl bindings, perl as an OO language is a
>   crime against humanity.  There are some vagues licensing
>   issues if you plan to use your code in a commercial environment.  

Qt is always an odd-ball, with limited bindings to languages

> * Gtk2 is the prettiest, and most modern/complete.  Avoid Gtk+
>   1.x like the plague, it's a bit of a munter.  Glade is nice design

There have been numerous problems with GTK2 apps. There is nothing
wrong with GTK1 at all.

>   tool and using libglade should make this very simple to use with Perl.
> 
> * Tk is ugly, but standard for some languages, I'd avoid it if you plan to
>   reuse your skills on another GUI app.

I actually really like Tk. It has more bindings to languages than
GTK does.

> * Curses is very standard, has the advantage of being very light and not
>   requiring an X session, but can be fiddly and annoying to work with.

That depends what you're trying to do in it. I have found it to be
quite fun.

> * WXWindows is a roughy copy of the windows GUI toolkit API's - some

It's no longer called WxWindows. It's now called WxWidgets, after
Microsoft stuck their ore in. It does look a little like Windows.

>   people love it, I hate it, but more conclusively it's not available on
>   most machines default builds.

The same can be said for other bindings, of course.

> * Fox, is OK, but looks clunky.

It's not too bad. Less clunky than GTK.

> * OpenMotif / LessTif are old fashioned looking, but solid and relatively
>   easy to use and well documented.

My favourite.

> * FLTK is pretty cool, but somewhat obscure.  Worth looking at though.

Nothing obscure about FLTK. It's been around for some time, and has
heavy use on the XD640 project.

> * Xlib - what real men use ;)

Indeed.

-- Thomas Adam
--
"Frankly, Mr. Shankly, since you ask. You are a flatulent pain in 
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