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Date: Wed, 7 Oct 2015 11:34:39 -0400
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Subject: Re: [geda-user] Toolkits
From: "Evan Foss (evanfoss AT gmail DOT com) [via geda-user AT delorie DOT com]" <geda-user AT delorie DOT com>
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On Wed, Oct 7, 2015 at 11:20 AM, Peter Stuge (peter AT stuge DOT se) [via
geda-user AT delorie DOT com] <geda-user AT delorie DOT com> wrote:
> gedau AT igor2 DOT repo DOT hu wrote:
>> What I dislike is changing the GUI [in an app] .. because the GUI
>> has a newer version
>
> I agree with you here, I don't think the mere availability of a new
> product (toolkit) is a good reason to start using it. My threshold
> for the value of being "modern" is rather high - it takes a lot more
> than just availability.
>
> Others will have a different emotional response, they will feel that
> it's very important to use the latest and greatest. The only thing we
> must keep in mind is that we need to work hard so that neither group
> gets to block the other, because there is no technical reason to do
> so. (I don't think there's a problem with this in pcb.)
>
>
>> and the old version we use is simply obsolete and will not be
>> easily available in the near future.
>
> This is full of uncertanity, and has a passive consumer perspective
> regarding the toolkit.
>
> Your approach to DIY a toolkit is the other extreme, an active
> producer perspective.
>
> There is at least one more way, in between the two: If at some point
> gtk2 is no longer easily available but we still want to use it then
> *we* can make it available. We can even go so far as bundle it into
> our source tarballs. That's not ideal, but nothing ever is.

That bloats our stuff a lot because you will need all of GTK2
including a lot of its dependencies. Keep in mind we want to package
binaries for distros to use. So that is a lot of waisted space.

> I am quite sure that we would not be the only group of developers who
> had this problem, and I think we would get lots of unexpected help if
> we took responsibility for maintaining a legacy gtk2 package. :)

I think this is being smarter than other people.

> I also don't think it would require much effort. Certainly less than
> writing a new toolkit from scratch.

libgeda has it's own problems and changing them always starts a war.

> (Please note, I don't want to discourage your effort, and I know that
> it's also for fun, go for it, I think your goals and design decisions
> are good.)
>
>
>> I,  also find it unsustainable long term that GUI libs get more and more
>> complex potentially causing application developers to spend more and more
>> time on just keeping up with their changes. I know this is an unpopular
>> opinion, especially from end user's perspective.
>
> Oh I don't know, yes "modern" is a value, but someone has to pay for it,
> I think users realize that.
>
>
>>> Yes. Did you look into fltk and solvespace?
>>
>> Thanks for the ideas.
>>
>> I did look at fltk, but I didn't consider solvespace.
>>
>> Both fltk and solvespace are written in C++ and I'd like to avoid C++.
>
> Oh, I didn't consider that. If fltk is otherwise a good fit then maybe
> a wrapper creating a C API would be a managable (still boring) effort?
>
>
>> They both seem to have their own frontends to X and win32, etc. It's a
>> good choice especially if you want the GUI to look native.
>
> I think only the drawing is abstracted in fltk, but each widget still
> draws itself.
>
> Solvespace certainly has its own UI look.
>
>
> //Peter



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