Date: Sun, 7 Mar 1999 23:25:29 +0200 From: Jeremy Lea <reg@shale.csir.co.za> To: eagle@phc.igs.net Cc: tlambert@primenet.com, asmodai@wxs.nl, brian@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: A BSD-licensed GUI toolkit? Message-ID: <19990307232529.B47536@shale.csir.co.za> In-Reply-To: <199903070641.BAA02704@eagle.phc.igs.net>; from eagle@phc.igs.net on Sun, Mar 07, 1999 at 01:41:37AM -0500 References: <199903061812.LAA03755@usr06.primenet.com> <199903070641.BAA02704@eagle.phc.igs.net>
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Hi all, On Sun, Mar 07, 1999 at 01:41:37AM -0500, eagle@phc.igs.net wrote: > Terry Lambert was seen writing: > > I actually believe that the future lies with things like "VNC": > > > > http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/ > > > > Because VNC can replicate frame buffer contents over a network > > (a simplified description, to be sure), you can get rid of most > > of the overhead of X11 by declaring that your network transport > > is a replication mechanism of some kind. > > > > [snip] > > I fail to see how this solves the issue at hand, with x library's as > this kind of implementation would have to replace x, destroying the > compatibility with existing software in the proccess. While vnc's frame > buffer replication ideas are indeed interesting, it goes nowhere to > solving the problem that we do have. > > that is quite simply a stable usefull x toolkit, I do agree that mofif > is dead, and that work on it would be aproaching useless though. > > So that leaves us with the prospect of designing and implementing a new > gui toolkit. I don't know if anyone has been watching the going on's over at Mozilla.org? I'm very interested in their XPToolkit. It's basically an XML based toolkit which will use their new layout engine to render the entire application. At the moment the Unix version uses GTK+, but with a little work it could use XLib directly. Also, they want to use their own widget's (which they already have/have too implement for HTML forms) in place of platform native widgets if possible. I think the idea of an XML based toolkit, with style sheets, has a lot of merit. I'm not saying that Mozilla.org's (Netscapes) implemtation is right - it's the concept of using an SGML/XML based representation which I like. This makes the toolkit very cross platform, allows for lots of neat tricks in terms language support, disability support and can be made very light weight on handhelds... not to mention the "benefits" of style sheets for themeing the desktop. To stick my neck out into an area where I'm not an expert... My view of the future of GUIs on Unix is that X windows will be split into two parts: a display driver (which provides direct hardware access + OpenGL), and might be a kernel module, and a X server process (with GLX) which uses that display driver. However, other native applications could have direct access to the display driver. These might include an X server aware window manager, 3D accelarated games and an XML/HTML layout engine. If you're going to start coding a toolkit from scratch (with a BSD licence), then writing an XML language and a layout engine (which used X or a direct display driver - and could uses Win32 or Mac...) might be a viable option. There are many examples of layout engines floating around, not the least of which is Mozilla.org's (which is under a half free licence - at least it has no poison pill). This doesn't buy you anything as an X toolkit to replace that used by existing applications... If this is the desired path a free clone of GTK+ would be a good thing. Just my 2c. -Jeremy -- | "I could be anything I wanted to, but one things true --+-- Never gonna be as big as Jesus, never gonna hold the world in my hand | Never gonna be as big as Jesus, never gonna build a promised land | But that's, that's all right, OK with me..." -Audio Adrenaline To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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