On Fri, Jan 24, 2003 at 03:32:05PM +0100, Daan Leijen wrote:
- In the long run, we will have a CommonGUI library which restricts itself to elements which can be implemented with the native look-and-feel.
This is indeed exactly what we need! and except for the name, this is exactly what the Graphics.UI.Port library is trying to do. Fortunately for us, Krasimir has already done all the hard work and studied the whole off the GTK and Windows API and extracted a common interface (and I have little doubt that the Port interface will also work for Aqua). Dear Daan,
is my perception right that Krasimir has created the beginning of a portable GUI library in C and that you Ports library is the Haskell interface? If so, perhaps we could just add HToolkit to the possible back-ends: - Win32 Object I/O in CVS - Gtk(2hs) - an Aqua binding - HToolkit But the remaining issue is to create a common (probably Object I/O based) layer which gives a common, stable interface to all these. If Krasimir has done such a good job (and honestly, I do not doubt that), then your Ports library will be a 1:1 mapping to this CommonGUI library. But there are so many facettes to a GUI library that it will take years till everything is implemented. And till then we have the other libraries which people like Simon Marlow can use to implement specialized version of their 2&3 programs (recall: richt widget set and native look'n'feel). Axel.