gui libs are wonderful, but haskell sometimes has too few and sometimes has too many. and those we have do not work with every haskell implementation. and when they do work (usually with ghc, these days), they need to be rebuilt whenever ghc is updated, even if the gui lib hasn't changed at all (one gui lib binding per ghc version). still, we put up with that when we need all those gui lib features, because we have to, and we're happy to live in one of those periods when there are such bindings to full-featured gui libraries. but what about quick and dirty/cheap and cheerful graphics? over the years, HGL/SOEGraphics has served as a persistent reminder that things keep changing, and that when they do, something breaks. even if all people want to do is draw some simple graphics, or animations. i don't have a solution, but i'd like to throw another alternative into the ring, based on the ongoing fight between web browsers and other guis for world dominance.. the idea is well known: build your app as a server, and put an ajax-based gui in front of it, even if server and browser run on the same machine. attached is a silly quick&dirty demo of some of the relevant concepts, including a fake haskell http-server, an html/canvas/httprequest/ javascript-based gui, and some simple graphics/buttons/text. tested on windows, with opera 9.01 and ghc 6.6.1. it will probably not work with other browsers, but it should work with opera on other platforms, or with other haskell implementations supporting Network. (you might have to hardcode the file name at the top of the source if not using ghc; to make it work with other browsers, you need workarounds for standard browser incompatibilities) to run, load Canvas.hs into ghci and call main. then start up opera, and visit 'http://localhost:8000/start' (to change that port number, change both 'main' in the haskell source, and 'get' in the html source). that should yield an html page with further instructions. have a look, and please let me know if it works on your os/ haskell implementation, and what you think about the idea. i won't do it myself, but perhaps someone could code up SOEGraphics based on this?-) and if not, this might still help out some of you who need simple low-overhead guis (things can get hairy very quickly if you need more than simple guis)? some of you might have to fight through implementing browser- based guis for their day jobs anyhow, but may want to put haskell behind those guis; or you might find haskell prototyping an easier sell, if the gui can be reused for the "real" implementation.. claus further reading/download: Opera browser (windows, macos, solaris, linux, ..) http://www.opera.com/download/ html 5 -- working draft, june 2007 (3.14.11 canvas element) http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/#the-canvas canvas tutorial http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Canvas_tutorial http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Drawing_Graphics_with_Canvas