Wouldn't it be nice if...

[iamaboringperson]

That's what I've been talking/thinking about for a long time.

I think it's a great idea, and I honestly believe it can be done.


It would be nice to have a kind of C++ touch to it, if you know what I mean! ;-)

[iamaboringperson]

Matt_H wrote:
I think this would be spectacular in building a bridge between the two camps.

Now if I only knew how to program...

Three camps!

And would you like me to recommend a good programming book? ;-)

[iamaboringperson]

I'm okay with BOOPSI and Intuition(and GadTools I suppose), but I'm not so great with MUI.

I would absolutly love to see an abstraction library. It might be a set of files with one that includes them all(one ring to bind them all). :-)

I think if we were to look at the similarities between the different systems we could map out which functions can be used in common between them.

Data structures might need to be unique to this new gui thing.

I imagine compareing two string gadget(as an example) classes, and looking for similar methods etc. and then writing new functions that will in turn call either of the MUI or ReAction functions.
It might be a bit inefficient to begin with, but with faster machines in the futre it shouldn't matter too much.

[iamaboringperson]

@whoosh777

(A bit OT)

I studiously avoid GUIs in all shapes, forms and guises.

I was brought up in the Unix school of thought,
(a university actually),

The problem is this: GUIs are very unportable,

sure, if you can abstract Reaction, MUI, etc then
yes you can port between Pegasos and A1 and AROS,

Problem is:

you cant port to Unix, Linux, PCs, Macs, etc

so whats the use, eh?

Okay, so you don't like GUI's, I can understand that.
However there are many users who will only use a computer that has a GUI. To many a GUI is what makes a computer easy to use.
You don't have to like it, just respect those who prefer a GUI.

OS4 is created using gcc, gcc is probably the most
portable program in the universe, the fact it has
no GUI is part of its extreme level of portability.

If gcc had some fantastic GUI it would be fantastically
unportable,

All my programs are shell driven only,
some are highly nontrivial progs eg I am 5 months into
my current project and there is no GUI whatsoever.

:and I am proud of this, its a feature! (a portability feature).

Sure! It's true that GUI's make portability worse. I accept that. But they provide so much more to the end user who doesn't care to learn about command line usage.

Some people seem to think that a prog without a GUI cant
be a proper prog, hmmmm so you think gcc isnt a proper prog.

I don't know of anybody here who thinks that programs that don't have a GUI aren't 'proper'.
They are just more accessable.

Here I will just use Intuition facilities as available in
OS1.2 or OS2.0. whichever OS version it is I stick to good old
fashioned intuition.library (but see below regarding asynchronicity),

There are two main problems with programming for 1.2 Intuition:
1. It is so much more difficult to write. GadTools made things easier. BOOPSI/ReAction(ClassAct)/MUI make it easier still. There is less programming to be done, which means more time to spend on the important bits (the background)
2. User acceptance. It's great that you have this really neat program that works from the shell and is highly portable. However there are many out there who only care for software that -  as they see it - they can use. That means a nice big pretty GUI.

IMO GUIs are a total non-issue,
I am much more interested in what a program does
than the interface.

:The most important part of a prog is the stuff you cant see IMO,

Sure. Same here. I want a program that does the job properly. But I migh also want an easy to use GUI. And the vast majority of computer users out there do want a GUI.

Regarding a GUI for entering parameters
I am quite happy just to enter the data into
a text file via Memacs TBH.

Great. So do that. Just respect the fact that there are other people out there who have more to do with their time than to edit text files all day, and learn the syntax for each new program.

Equally good for me would be a shell-run questions and
answers prog, like they used to use in the pre-GUI era.

That is so slow, and there is so much typing involved. Also, it isn't very real time. It just doesn't appeal to the average computer user, including myself.

Whats the point of all that MUI bloat if I cant
get *total* asynchronicity.

I can get total asynchronicity by the unix-textbook
technique of launching a task from every gadget action
via OS1.2 or OS2.0

You need to under stand that the GUI system offers the user alot more than just 'asynchronicity'. And it is possible for MUI based programs to spawn new threads anyway. It's up to the programmer.


This is off-topic anyway, and it might be an idea if you were to start a whole new thread about the issue of GUI V's CLI.

[iamaboringperson]

bloodline wrote:
I would agree with Kronos, that since Zune and MUI are avaiable for all three systems (and given the maturity of the MUI sysetm, and the freeness of Zune), it makes sense to target that, over Reaction, in a purely logical sense.

Sounds good. However I would like to see more options for the end user.

It would be nice to get this GUI abstraction library happening so that there are fewer problems for the end user who doesn't know which GUI system they want.
Or for the user who wants to use ReAction but can only find MUI apps.

I prefer ReAction, and I think it would be great if I could just write a program once using this GUI abstraction system and either compile two versions of it(or more) or just the one version of the program which will use MUI or ReAction or any other GUI system that the user prefers.

It's all about choice!

[iamaboringperson]

I think one great way to start this project would be to find just one or two types of gadgets(or whatever), and then write an abstraction library for it, and see how successful we are with just the one.

Then it can be expanded to all other gadgets, etc. one by one.

:-)

[iamaboringperson]

@bloodline

That's very nice about Zune, but we are talking about somthing that will appeal to MUI haters! ;-)

[iamaboringperson]

I think this project would be great if written with "Borland C++ Builder"/ "Visual Basic" style development tools in mind.

This would be esspecialy good if done in C++

I think when designing this GUI builder programs should be considered