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digitalmars.D - GUI library

reply freeagle <freeagle inmail.sk> writes:
Hello D community.

I joined a while ago a talk at d.D.dwt about future of DWT and other 
possible GUI toolkits. There were many opinions, but there was one that 
I liked the most - making a cross platform GUI library that would use 
OpenGL as a renderer. I know there was a project called Terra, but it 
seems that it went down. So i decided i could make something similar. It 
would be multithreaded lib from ground up because of the way openGL 
works with multiple windows. I dont want to make any official 
announcement of a development taking place until I ask the D community 
if it would welcome such effort. And what would you like it to be 
capable of. I have my own ideas, but i dont want to make something that 
pleases me, but will be refused by majority of the devs.

freeagle
Jul 27 2006
next sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound digitalmars.com> writes:
freeagle wrote:

 I joined a while ago a talk at d.D.dwt about future of DWT and other 
 possible GUI toolkits. There were many opinions, but there was one that 
 I liked the most - making a cross platform GUI library that would use 
 OpenGL as a renderer. I know there was a project called Terra, but it 
 seems that it went down. So i decided i could make something similar. It 
 would be multithreaded lib from ground up because of the way openGL 
 works with multiple windows. I dont want to make any official 
 announcement of a development taking place until I ask the D community 
 if it would welcome such effort. And what would you like it to be 
 capable of. I have my own ideas, but i dont want to make something that 
 pleases me, but will be refused by majority of the devs.


If it pleases you, odds are pretty good that you'll find a receptive 
audience for it.

It's also hard to argue with something that is implemented and works. So 
have at it!
Jul 27 2006
parent freeagle <freeagle inmail.sk> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 freeagle wrote:

 I joined a while ago a talk at d.D.dwt about future of DWT and other 
 possible GUI toolkits. There were many opinions, but there was one 
 that I liked the most - making a cross platform GUI library that would 
 use OpenGL as a renderer. I know there was a project called Terra, but 
 it seems that it went down. So i decided i could make something 
 similar. It would be multithreaded lib from ground up because of the 
 way openGL works with multiple windows. I dont want to make any 
 official announcement of a development taking place until I ask the D 
 community if it would welcome such effort. And what would you like it 
 to be capable of. I have my own ideas, but i dont want to make 
 something that pleases me, but will be refused by majority of the devs.


 
 If it pleases you, odds are pretty good that you'll find a receptive 
 audience for it.
 
 It's also hard to argue with something that is implemented and works. So 
 have at it!


Thats right. But I'm sure that some people will have good ideas, and I 
think this is the best place to ask for them :)
Jul 27 2006
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Anders Runesson <anders runesson.info> writes:
I have something like this in the works, for my own humble 3d engine. I
haven't gotten very far, just opening windows and some basic event
handling. I will be happy to share it with anyone interested. 

It's bsd-style licenced, which should be liberal enough for anyone. 

I am primarily using linux, so the code is very x11-centric right now,
but I have been meaning to make it portable. I just don't have a clue
about windows programming :)

It is very rough, and I haven't even thought about threading yet. But
feel free to have a look. It is available at www.runesson.info.

/Anders

fre 2006-07-28 klockan 01:33 +0200 skrev freeagle:

 Hello D community.
 
 I joined a while ago a talk at d.D.dwt about future of DWT and other 
 possible GUI toolkits. There were many opinions, but there was one that 
 I liked the most - making a cross platform GUI library that would use 
 OpenGL as a renderer. I know there was a project called Terra, but it 
 seems that it went down. So i decided i could make something similar. It 
 would be multithreaded lib from ground up because of the way openGL 
 works with multiple windows. I dont want to make any official 
 announcement of a development taking place until I ask the D community 
 if it would welcome such effort. And what would you like it to be 
 capable of. I have my own ideas, but i dont want to make something that 
 pleases me, but will be refused by majority of the devs.
 
 freeagle
Jul 27 2006
parent reply freeagle <freeagle inmail.sk> writes:
Anders Runesson wrote:

 I have something like this in the works, for my own humble 3d engine. I
 haven't gotten very far, just opening windows and some basic event
 handling. I will be happy to share it with anyone interested. 
 
 It's bsd-style licenced, which should be liberal enough for anyone. 
 
 I am primarily using linux, so the code is very x11-centric right now,
 but I have been meaning to make it portable. I just don't have a clue
 about windows programming :)
 
 It is very rough, and I haven't even thought about threading yet. But
 feel free to have a look. It is available at www.runesson.info.
 
 /Anders
 
 fre 2006-07-28 klockan 01:33 +0200 skrev freeagle:

 Hello D community.

 I joined a while ago a talk at d.D.dwt about future of DWT and other 
 possible GUI toolkits. There were many opinions, but there was one that 
 I liked the most - making a cross platform GUI library that would use 
 OpenGL as a renderer. I know there was a project called Terra, but it 
 seems that it went down. So i decided i could make something similar. It 
 would be multithreaded lib from ground up because of the way openGL 
 works with multiple windows. I dont want to make any official 
 announcement of a development taking place until I ask the D community 
 if it would welcome such effort. And what would you like it to be 
 capable of. I have my own ideas, but i dont want to make something that 
 pleases me, but will be refused by majority of the devs.

 freeagle


 


I already have coded something like you, singlethreaded too. But i 
realized its very performance limiting when you try to open more than 
one openGL window in a single thread. Switching to multithreading will 
make the coding harder, but i think it has more pros than cons, much 
more. And with the upcoming era of dual, quad, multi core CPUs... Only 
difference is that for now i have code for win32 only. But i tried to 
design it with other platforms in mind since the beginning. And thank 
you, ill surely look at your project. I, on the other hand,  dont have 
much exp with X11 coding :)
Jul 28 2006
parent reply Anders Runesson <anders runesson.info> writes:
fre 2006-07-28 klockan 12:21 +0200 skrev freeagle:


 I already have coded something like you, singlethreaded too. But i 
 realized its very performance limiting when you try to open more than 
 one openGL window in a single thread. Switching to multithreading will 
 make the coding harder, but i think it has more pros than cons, much 
 more. 


Yup. But from what I hear, opengl is extremely sensitive to being called
from different threads simultaneously. The rendering needs to be done in
one single thread, for all windows. Anything else is apparently asking
for trouble.

/Anders
Jul 28 2006
parent reply freeagle <freeagle inmail.sk> writes:
Anders Runesson wrote:

 fre 2006-07-28 klockan 12:21 +0200 skrev freeagle:
 

 I already have coded something like you, singlethreaded too. But i 
 realized its very performance limiting when you try to open more than 
 one openGL window in a single thread. Switching to multithreading will 
 make the coding harder, but i think it has more pros than cons, much 
 more. 


 Yup. But from what I hear, opengl is extremely sensitive to being called
 from different threads simultaneously. The rendering needs to be done in
 one single thread, for all windows. Anything else is apparently asking
 for trouble.
 
 /Anders
 


hmm, i havent found any prob on the net when using 
context-per-thread-per-window approach. People only mention there is a 
problem when you try to draw to a single context from multiple threads, 
or drawing to the same window using multiple contexts from different 
threads. And im not planning to do that. And if possible, prevent the 
user from doing it as well. But if you found something else, plz, post a 
link to that article, id like to read it.
Jul 28 2006
parent Anders Runesson <anders runesson.info> writes:
fre 2006-07-28 klockan 13:50 +0200 skrev freeagle:


 hmm, i havent found any prob on the net when using 
 context-per-thread-per-window approach. People only mention there is a 
 problem when you try to draw to a single context from multiple threads, 
 or drawing to the same window using multiple contexts from different 
 threads. And im not planning to do that. And if possible, prevent the 
 user from doing it as well. But if you found something else, plz, post a 
 link to that article, id like to read it.


I have never tried it myself, I just repeated something I heard. People
ask about threads often on comp.graphics.api.opengl, and often people
answer "be careful about threading with opengl!". But you are probably
right, it's single context-multiple threads that cause worries.

/Anders
Jul 28 2006
prev sibling next sibling parent reply clayasaurus <clayasaurus gmail.com> writes:
freeagle wrote:

 Hello D community.
 
 I joined a while ago a talk at d.D.dwt about future of DWT and other 
 possible GUI toolkits. There were many opinions, but there was one that 
 I liked the most - making a cross platform GUI library that would use 
 OpenGL as a renderer. I know there was a project called Terra, but it 
 seems that it went down. So i decided i could make something similar. It 
 would be multithreaded lib from ground up because of the way openGL 
 works with multiple windows. I dont want to make any official 
 announcement of a development taking place until I ask the D community 
 if it would welcome such effort. And what would you like it to be 
 capable of. I have my own ideas, but i dont want to make something that 
 pleases me, but will be refused by majority of the devs.
 
 freeagle


Terra is still alive and well http://www.sequenceartworks.com/labs/terra/
Jul 27 2006
parent reply Kramer <Kramer_member pathlink.com> writes:
clayasaurus wrote:

 freeagle wrote:

 Hello D community.

 I joined a while ago a talk at d.D.dwt about future of DWT and other 
 possible GUI toolkits. There were many opinions, but there was one 
 that I liked the most - making a cross platform GUI library that would 
 use OpenGL as a renderer. I know there was a project called Terra, but 
 it seems that it went down. So i decided i could make something 
 similar. It would be multithreaded lib from ground up because of the 
 way openGL works with multiple windows. I dont want to make any 
 official announcement of a development taking place until I ask the D 
 community if it would welcome such effort. And what would you like it 
 to be capable of. I have my own ideas, but i dont want to make 
 something that pleases me, but will be refused by majority of the devs.

 freeagle


 
 Terra is still alive and well http://www.sequenceartworks.com/labs/terra/
 


The DSource project no longer seems available.  Is it still being 
actively developed, or just in hiatus...?

-Kramer
Jul 27 2006
parent reply Brad Anderson <brad dsource.org> writes:
Kramer wrote:

 clayasaurus wrote:

 freeagle wrote:

 Hello D community.

 I joined a while ago a talk at d.D.dwt about future of DWT and other
 possible GUI toolkits. There were many opinions, but there was one
 that I liked the most - making a cross platform GUI library that
 would use OpenGL as a renderer. I know there was a project called
 Terra, but it seems that it went down. So i decided i could make
 something similar. It would be multithreaded lib from ground up
 because of the way openGL works with multiple windows. I dont want to
 make any official announcement of a development taking place until I
 ask the D community if it would welcome such effort. And what would
 you like it to be capable of. I have my own ideas, but i dont want to
 make something that pleases me, but will be refused by majority of
 the devs.

 freeagle


 Terra is still alive and well http://www.sequenceartworks.com/labs/terra/


 
 The DSource project no longer seems available.  Is it still being
 actively developed, or just in hiatus...?
 
 -Kramer


Soon, Trevor will re-release under a different project, and Terra will be a
sub-project.  That's if I understood him correctly.

BA
Jul 27 2006
parent reply freeagle <freeagle inmail.sk> writes:
Brad Anderson wrote:

 Kramer wrote:

 clayasaurus wrote:

 freeagle wrote:

 Hello D community.

 I joined a while ago a talk at d.D.dwt about future of DWT and other
 possible GUI toolkits. There were many opinions, but there was one
 that I liked the most - making a cross platform GUI library that
 would use OpenGL as a renderer. I know there was a project called
 Terra, but it seems that it went down. So i decided i could make
 something similar. It would be multithreaded lib from ground up
 because of the way openGL works with multiple windows. I dont want to
 make any official announcement of a development taking place until I
 ask the D community if it would welcome such effort. And what would
 you like it to be capable of. I have my own ideas, but i dont want to
 make something that pleases me, but will be refused by majority of
 the devs.

 freeagle


 Terra is still alive and well http://www.sequenceartworks.com/labs/terra/


 The DSource project no longer seems available.  Is it still being
 actively developed, or just in hiatus...?

 -Kramer


 
 Soon, Trevor will re-release under a different project, and Terra will be a
 sub-project.  That's if I understood him correctly.
 
 BA


do you know how far is he with the development? because at dsource, 
Terra seemed to be untouched for quite a while
Jul 28 2006
parent clayasaurus <clayasaurus gmail.com> writes:
freeagle wrote:

 Brad Anderson wrote:

 Kramer wrote:

 clayasaurus wrote:

 freeagle wrote:

 Hello D community.

 I joined a while ago a talk at d.D.dwt about future of DWT and other
 possible GUI toolkits. There were many opinions, but there was one
 that I liked the most - making a cross platform GUI library that
 would use OpenGL as a renderer. I know there was a project called
 Terra, but it seems that it went down. So i decided i could make
 something similar. It would be multithreaded lib from ground up
 because of the way openGL works with multiple windows. I dont want to
 make any official announcement of a development taking place until I
 ask the D community if it would welcome such effort. And what would
 you like it to be capable of. I have my own ideas, but i dont want to
 make something that pleases me, but will be refused by majority of
 the devs.

 freeagle


 Terra is still alive and well 
 http://www.sequenceartworks.com/labs/terra/


 The DSource project no longer seems available.  Is it still being
 actively developed, or just in hiatus...?

 -Kramer


 Soon, Trevor will re-release under a different project, and Terra will 
 be a
 sub-project.  That's if I understood him correctly.

 BA


 
 do you know how far is he with the development? because at dsource, 
 Terra seemed to be untouched for quite a while


All I know is that he does actively develop it outside of dsource.
~ Clay
Jul 28 2006
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Bruno Medeiros <brunodomedeirosATgmail SPAM.com> writes:
freeagle wrote:

 Hello D community.
 
 I joined a while ago a talk at d.D.dwt about future of DWT and other 
 possible GUI toolkits. There were many opinions, but there was one that 
 I liked the most - making a cross platform GUI library that would use 
 OpenGL as a renderer. I know there was a project called Terra, but it 
 seems that it went down. So i decided i could make something similar. It 
 would be multithreaded lib from ground up because of the way openGL 
 works with multiple windows. I dont want to make any official 
 announcement of a development taking place until I ask the D community 
 if it would welcome such effort. And what would you like it to be 
 capable of. I have my own ideas, but i dont want to make something that 
 pleases me, but will be refused by majority of the devs.
 
 freeagle


That would be pretty nice, especially being cross-platform and OpenGL
based, which I particularly like.

Since it is cross-platform, how are you planning to handle the OS
specific code? Write it yourself or re-use some code? Because it seems
to me it is much and unnecessary work to do it yourself, perhaps you
should use a cross-platform rendering lib, such as SDL or maybe Cairo ?
SDL seems a favorite for me, it the most abstracted one as it is only a
media layer library, it does not have 2D shape rendering stuff like
Cairo. But there are some problems: SDL currently (1.2) allows only one
GL context, which goes against your objectives of multiple windows, and
that has been a prominent disadvantage of SDL so far. (it was too
mentioned here in the newsgroup previously, when there were talks about
a common D media layer lib)
However, the 1.3 version of SDL, which is under development, will fully
support managing multiple GL contexts, so I think SDL would be great as
a GUI base rendering layer. I don't know however, is when it is expected
that SDL 1.3 will come out, if there is even such an estimate. (but
you're starting out yourself, so maybe it is worth it)

-- 
Bruno Medeiros - MSc in CS/E student
http://www.prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?BrunoMedeiros#D
Jul 30 2006
parent freeagle <freeagle inmail.sk> writes:
Bruno Medeiros wrote:

 freeagle wrote:

 Hello D community.

 I joined a while ago a talk at d.D.dwt about future of DWT and other 
 possible GUI toolkits. There were many opinions, but there was one 
 that I liked the most - making a cross platform GUI library that would 
 use OpenGL as a renderer. I know there was a project called Terra, but 
 it seems that it went down. So i decided i could make something 
 similar. It would be multithreaded lib from ground up because of the 
 way openGL works with multiple windows. I dont want to make any 
 official announcement of a development taking place until I ask the D 
 community if it would welcome such effort. And what would you like it 
 to be capable of. I have my own ideas, but i dont want to make 
 something that pleases me, but will be refused by majority of the devs.

 freeagle


 
 That would be pretty nice, especially being cross-platform and OpenGL
 based, which I particularly like.
 
 Since it is cross-platform, how are you planning to handle the OS
 specific code? Write it yourself or re-use some code? Because it seems
 to me it is much and unnecessary work to do it yourself, perhaps you
 should use a cross-platform rendering lib, such as SDL or maybe Cairo ?
 SDL seems a favorite for me, it the most abstracted one as it is only a
 media layer library, it does not have 2D shape rendering stuff like
 Cairo. But there are some problems: SDL currently (1.2) allows only one
 GL context, which goes against your objectives of multiple windows, and
 that has been a prominent disadvantage of SDL so far. (it was too
 mentioned here in the newsgroup previously, when there were talks about
 a common D media layer lib)
 However, the 1.3 version of SDL, which is under development, will fully
 support managing multiple GL contexts, so I think SDL would be great as
 a GUI base rendering layer. I don't know however, is when it is expected
 that SDL 1.3 will come out, if there is even such an estimate. (but
 you're starting out yourself, so maybe it is worth it)
 


I plan to write OS specific code myself. Whether it's more work or not 
is questionable. In SDL, you'd have to write child window logic 
yourself. But in my lib, child windows are normal OS windows ( in Win32 
WS_CHILD ) and thus every control logic is done by the OS. These child 
windows are transparent, so all OGL rendering is done just on the main 
parent window.
Jul 31 2006
prev sibling parent reply Lucas Goss <lgoss007 gmail.com> writes:
freeagle wrote:

 ... And what would you like it to be 
 capable of. I have my own ideas, but i dont want to make something that 
 pleases me, but will be refused by majority of the devs.
 


I've been toying with the same idea (OpenGL GUI), but I haven't got 
around to thinking about it too much...

I think it would be great to have the GUI library flexible enough that 
it could be used in a 3D engine but at the same time be usable in a 
stand alone application. Of course the main problem is that 3D engines 
usually want to control all OpenGL calls to make the rendering as 
efficient as possible.

I've also had some ideas for flexible transition effects, so I'm 
interested to hear how you envision this part of the system. But that 
can be discussed later...

Lucas
Jul 31 2006
next sibling parent freeagle <freeagle inmail.sk> writes:
Lucas Goss wrote:

 freeagle wrote:

 ... And what would you like it to be capable of. I have my own ideas, 
 but i dont want to make something that pleases me, but will be refused 
 by majority of the devs.


 
 I've been toying with the same idea (OpenGL GUI), but I haven't got 
 around to thinking about it too much...
 
 I think it would be great to have the GUI library flexible enough that 
 it could be used in a 3D engine but at the same time be usable in a 
 stand alone application. Of course the main problem is that 3D engines 
 usually want to control all OpenGL calls to make the rendering as 
 efficient as possible.
 
 I've also had some ideas for flexible transition effects, so I'm 
 interested to hear how you envision this part of the system. But that 
 can be discussed later...
 
 Lucas


exactly, that's what I'd like to achieve. Making the lib usable for both 
apps and games, making the widgets universal ("Universal" is actually 
the name I'd like the lib to have) for both of them. No need to write 
widget logics again and again, just skin the controls using different theme.
Jul 31 2006
prev sibling parent reply freeagle <freeagle inmail.sk> writes:
Lucas Goss wrote:

 freeagle wrote:

 ... And what would you like it to be capable of. I have my own ideas, 
 but i dont want to make something that pleases me, but will be refused 
 by majority of the devs.


 
 I've been toying with the same idea (OpenGL GUI), but I haven't got 
 around to thinking about it too much...
 
 I think it would be great to have the GUI library flexible enough that 
 it could be used in a 3D engine but at the same time be usable in a 
 stand alone application. Of course the main problem is that 3D engines 
 usually want to control all OpenGL calls to make the rendering as 
 efficient as possible.
 
 I've also had some ideas for flexible transition effects, so I'm 
 interested to hear how you envision this part of the system. But that 
 can be discussed later...
 
 Lucas


BTW, that problem you mentioned can be solved like this: application and 
windows has their own threads. It could be possible to use the window 
thread just for message handling, with no GL calls. Then acquire the 
context of that window in the application thread and make it handle all 
rendering (first the world and then tell the contained widgets to render 
themselves) and game mechanics.
Jul 31 2006
parent =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=22R=E9my_J=2E_A=2E_Mou=EBza=22?= writes:
I have also thought about doing this kind of library OpenGL+SDL based. 
Terra seemed to show no more sign of activity. However, before starting 
to code anything, I searched the web to find if anyone had already tried 
to do the same in C, since it is binary compatible with D.

I found two libraries that interested me ( I no longer remember why 
there were especially interesting ):
- Agar: http://agar.csoft.org/index.html.en
- OTK: http://otk.sourceforge.net/

I had several ideas about using these :
- making a binding to D.
- wrapping the functions and structures into a hierarchy of D classes.
- making my own library, using the code as a template to rely on a 	 
proven design. That latter idea is too much unrealistic for me, all 
alone, but you may find it usefull.
Jul 31 2006