[GUI] Proposal Proposal: haskell-gui addendum to haskell standard

[Keith Wansbrough]

[replying in GUI only]

>   I believe that haskell would have great benifit from
> a platform independant specification for a graphical
> user interface module or set of modules.  I've been

Absolutely!

> blessed with a lot of time on my hands so I'd be
> willing to organize this project if needed.

That would be great.

> 1.  Platform independance:  The QT widget library is a
> stunning example of how platform independance is
> achievable without sacraficing speed.  I am not
> suggesting that we build haskell-gui off of QT but
> might use major components of it as a model. 
> Eventually, the library could have three backends; the
> Windows API, the X API (or gtk perhaps?), and the Mac
> API (the name illudes me at the moment).

Why do you suggest basing it on QT?  Gtk is also platform-independent
(Unix and Win32), and there are already two Haskell bindings for it.

I think neither QT nor Gtk are appropriate as a basis for designing a
standard Haskell GUI - they are both specific toolkits, with loads of
features specific to each.  A standard GUI will have to be fairly
minimal, so it can be easily implemented on top of several toolkits.

The beginnings of the last go at a standard GUI library are documented
here:

  http://haskell.org/communities/11-2001/html/report.html#sect4.3.1


Thanks for your prompting and offer of time!  It would be great to get
this off the ground.

Cheers,

--KW 8-)