GUIs - A Modest Proposal

[Stephen Hansen]

On 6/10/10 12:34 PM, Evan Plaice wrote:
> <rant>This is my first foray into usenet and f*** the signal to crap
> ratio in here is ridiculous. I can't believe that there are 150+
> answers and little or no useful information yet</rant>

That's because the question wasn't really a question. Its a political
rallying cry to try to get us all to Do Something we don't really want
to do.

That said:

> I was wondering the same thing since the subject of cross platform GUI
> dev makes me cringe. I was wondering if there was a cross-platform
> language-agnostic XML-based declarative language. Basically, what HTML/
> CSS is to web browsers for the desktop.
> 
> Microsoft's WPF and more specifically XAML format accomplish the cross-
> platform cross-language part but the technology is owned by Microsoft.
> 
> Here are my findings:
> <a herf="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2962874/what-are-the-open-
> source-alternatives-to-wpf">
> 
> GTK+ & Glade
> Glade is the actual XML format. It can be used on any platform or
> language as long as GTK+ running on that system is adapted to it.
> 
> wxWidgets & XRC
> XRC is the format. Libraries that use it vary on the language (ex.
> wx.NET for C#, VB, and Managed C++).
> 
> If you want a desktop GUI that is cross-platform, language-agnostic,
> and open source. Use and contribute to these projects.

I'm only familiar with wxWidgets, and I have used XRC though not
terribly extensively. Its useful in certain contexts, but at least the
toolchains are a bit more 'dialog-focused' then 'design entire apps'.
Its still usable though. I usually design all my UI's by hand, just
because at this point, I use too many custom components and can do it
without thinking. But for certain 'custom' forms that I do make heavy
use of XRC.

Another thing you can look at is QT/PyQT. If you're doing GPL'd
software, that might be a very good solution for you-- you can design
your whole app in the beautiful QTDesigner, and the .ui files can be
used in any language with a QT binding, PyQT included. But you gotta be
GPL'd to use Python. (Although QT is now LGPL, the PyQT bindings
continue the GPL/commercial split... and PySide isn't cross platform yet)

-- 

   Stephen Hansen
   ... me+list/python (AT) ixokai (DOT) io

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