If you want code to work on all toolkits, you have to provide it. It would also be necessary if we wanted to implement some of Xt's features (e.g. customisation through external files, e.g. for I18N) for other toolkits.
Hmm... Could you point me to an overview of what that X resource stuff really does and how it really works?
This also simplifies coding. The UI creation code doesn't need to store lots of handles for later reference; code can obtain the run-time handle using the widget's pathname.
I like storing my handles because I want compile-time safety.... but it wouldn't hurt if that feature was there. One more question: what about platform-specific interface definitions (e.g. nib files on Mac OS) that don't contain textual widget names? Cheers, Wolfgang