[Haskell-cafe] Poll & plea: State of GUI & graphics libraries in Haskell

[Atze Dijkstra]

Hi,

as for wxHaskell, it is currently maintained at https://github.com/wxHaskell/wxHaskell, compilable with wxWidgets 2.9.5 and GHC 7.6. Work is underway to fix various bugs introduced over time by changes in wxWidgets, but we (i.e. https://github.com/wxHaskell?tab=members) hope to release & announce in not too much time.

cheers,
Atze

On  30 Sep, 2013, at 20:32 , Conal Elliott <conal at conal.net> wrote:

> Hi Conrad,
> 
> Great. The challenge is not specific to Pan, Vertigo, etc. If we can get some low-level GUI platform working with the characteristics I listed, I can resurrect and my high-level libraries accordingly. Any GUI program containing at least one OpenGL window would probably get us most of the way there (again, noting the properties I listed).
> 
> -- Conal
> 
> 
> On Fri, Sep 27, 2013 at 1:40 AM, Conrad Parker <conrad at metadecks.org> wrote:
> Hi Conal!
> 
> Yes. I'd be very interested to help get Pan and Vertigo working. Do you have a repo somewhere?
> 
> Conrad.
> 
> 
> On 27 September 2013 13:32, Conal Elliott <conal at conal.net> wrote:
> I'm polling to see whether there are will and expertise to reboot graphics and GUIs work in Haskell. I miss working on functional graphics and GUIs in Haskell, as I've been blocked for several years (eight?) due to the absence of low-level foundation libraries having the following properties:
> 
> * cross-platform,
> * easily buildable,
> * GHCi-friendly, and
> * OpenGL-compatible.
> 
> The last several times I tried Gtk2hs, I was unable to compile it on my Mac. Years ago when I was able to compile, the GUIs looked and interacted like a Linux app, which made them awkward and upleasant to use. wxHaskell (whose API and visual appearance I prefered) has for years been incompatible with GHCi, in that the second time I open a top-level window, the host process (GHCi) dies abruptly. Since my GUI & graphics programs are often one-liners, and I tend to experiment a lot, using a full compilation greatly thwarts my flow. For many years, I've thought that the situation would eventually improve, since I'm far from the only person who wants GUIs or graphics from Haskell.
> 
> About three years ago, I built a modern replacement of my old Pan and Vertigo systems (optimized high-level functional graphics in 2D and 3D), generating screamingly fast GPU rendering code. I'd love to share it with the community, but I'm unable to use it even myself.
> 
> Two questions:
> 
> * Am I mistaken about the current status? I.e., is there a solution for Haskell GUI & graphics programming that satisfies the properties I'm looking for (cross-platform, easily buildable, GHCi-friendly, and OpenGL-compatible)?
> * Are there people willing and able to fix this situation? My own contributions would be to test and to share high-level composable and efficient GUI and graphics libraries on top of a working foundation.
> 
> Looking forward to replies. Thanks,
> 
> -- Conal
> 
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                - Atze -

Atze Dijkstra, Department of Information and Computing Sciences. /|\
Utrecht University, PO Box 80089, 3508 TB Utrecht, Netherlands. / | \
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