[GUI] RE: Gtk and Object I/O

[Krasimir Angelov]

--- Simon Peyton-Jones <simonpj@microsoft.com> wrote:
> | going to stop gtk+hs because of this". So it seems
> we are all
> | waiting for the critical user mass that makes our
> own beloved 
> | GUI library (binding) the standard GUI library.
> For the sake 
> | of Haskell, we can only hope that this will
> actually happen 
> | one day.  A sad side-effects of this is that most
> of us GUI 
> | developers waste a tremendous amount of time. A
> paper is just 
> | not worth the effort we put in writing the code.
> 
> I don't think we are waiting for critical user mass.
>  We're waiting for
> critical 
> *designer/developer* mass!
> 
> Before Haskell existed, there were half a dozen
> not-very-good lazy
> functional languages, roughly one for each research
> group.  Haskell was
> born out of the realisation that our efforts were
> fragmented and
> duplicated by this language diversity.  Perhaps the
> situation with GUIs
> today is similar.
> 
> What is necessary is for those who are enthusiastic
> about developing GUI
> technology to get together and hammer out a common
> design; and then
> co-ooperate in implementing and supporting it.  The
> hard bit is for
> everyone to compromise enough to agree a common
> design.  For that to be
> feasible you either need a fair consensus on the
> broad outlines, or
> enough frustration with the costs of diversity that
> everyone is prepared
> to make substantial compromises.   I sense that the
> latter condition may
> hold.  I'm not sure about whether there's a
> consensus on what a GUI
> library should look like to the programmer, but at
> least the current
> diversity means that there are quite a few
> more-or-less worked-out
> designs to serve as concrete starting points.
> 
> Speaking as a potential user of such a library, I
> would absolutely love
> to have a Haskell GUI library that 
> 	was available in some form on each major platform
> 	was supported by a bunch of people, so I could have
> 		some confidence in its continued existence
> Its exact capabilities are less important: (a) I'd
> adapt my program to
> fit what was available, and (b) I'm sure it would
> evolve in response to
> user feedback. I'd accept compromises in
> functionality to gain
> portability; it'd be OK to have 
> some platform-specific sexy bits.  Worse is better.
> 
> 
> As Manuel says, this process is already under way:
> the GUI task force.
>  
>
http://haskell.org/communities/11-2001/html/report.html#sect4.3.1
> But not much is happening on gui@haskell.org.  
> Well, nothing actually.
> Most of the 63 people subscribed to the list are
> (like me) lurkers.
> But I bet that a small subset are knowledgeable
> enough and motivated
> enough to do the job.  
> 
> My main purpose, in writing this over-long message,
> is to say again what
> a big service to the community it would be to agree
> a common design and
> to implement it.
> 
> 
> Simon

I am completely agree. The development of the 
ObjectIO and HToolkit was very interesting to me 
because this allows me to compare GTK and Win32. I 
understand that independently of the external 
differences of these API-s they have mostly similar 
features. The main differences I found are:


   * The GTK cannot draw rotated text and rotated 
elipses. This depend on restrictions imposed from X 
server.
   * The Win32 backed lack powerful text formating 
features like these given from PANGO.
   * The Font families given in the GTK and Win32 are 
rather different. The font management are still 
similar on each platform.

Probably there are also other differences but I hope
that they are not so important. I don`t have any
expirience with Mac platform and don't know how
different is it. 
   I expect to hear other opinions in gui@haskell.org
mailing list.

Krasimir

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