How to choose the right GUI toolkit ?

[Dan Lenski]

Eric Brunel wrote:
> On Thu, 09 Nov 2006 22:01:51 +0100, Dan Lenski <dlenski at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Tk 8.4 appears to use native Win32 widgets under Cygwin and native
> > WinXP.
>
> It seems to depend on the widget type, and on what you call native... For
> example, tk menus are definitely the native ones; tk scrollbars are the
> native ones, but with the Win2k look (no XP look available yet); tk
> buttons do not seem to be the native ones, as they don't act like "normal"
> Windows buttons.

So, basically, Tk is actually embedding the native Win2k menus, but it
isn't actually embedding the native Win2k scrollbars... it's just
emulating their look and feel?

> > But it definitely doesn't use GTK widgets under Ubuntu with
> > Gnome desktop.
>
> You seem to imply that GTK is "native" on Linux. It isn't, as can be seen
> with the echoes of the "holy war" between Gnome and KDE that we often see
> around here. As an aside, I personnally work on Linux and don't even use
> any of these environments (both are too much Windows-like to my taste...).

I didn't imply that GTK widgets are "native" on Linux.  I implied that
GTK widgets native under Gnome ;-)  I was basing my assumption on an
earlier poster who said that Tk 8.x can use native widgets on all
supported platforms... so I assumed that under Gnome it should use GTK
widgets.

> > Is there a way to get it to do so?
>
> Not yet. But tcl/tk 8.5 will include the Tile extension including new
> themable widgets. See here:
> http://tktable.sourceforge.net/tile/screenshots/unix.html

Good to know!  I'm looking forward to 8.5.

Dan