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digitalmars.D.announce - GUI Design (DWT) with XML

reply TomD <t_demmer nospam.web.de> writes:
Hi,
I have uploaded xwt to 
http://demmer.kilu.de/Software/xwt_20090305.zip

This is an extensible library that parses the XML description
of a GUI. It is based on DWT, the SWT port to D, and Tango. In theory,
it should run unaltered on Win32 and Linux, and one day also on OSX.

The basic idea is to wrap all widgets into a class that implements a
configure method for each widget. During load of the XML tree, the
widget tree is built in parallel. 

I have included a couple of examples, so you get the idea.

Feedback&bug reports welcome.

Ciao
TomD
Mar 05 2009
parent reply Bill Baxter <wbaxter gmail.com> writes:
On Fri, Mar 6, 2009 at 5:47 AM, TomD <t_demmer nospam.web.de> wrote:

 Hi,
 I have uploaded xwt to
 http://demmer.kilu.de/Software/xwt_20090305.zip

 This is an extensible library that parses the XML description
 of a GUI. It is based on DWT, the SWT port to D, and Tango. In theory,
 it should run unaltered on Win32 and Linux, and one day also on OSX.

 The basic idea is to wrap all widgets into a class that implements a
 configure method for each widget. During load of the XML tree, the
 widget tree is built in parallel.

 I have included a couple of examples, so you get the idea.

 Feedback&bug reports welcome.


I was hoping you might get some comments on this.
It seems to me a lot of people like the idea of XML files to configure
a gui.  I'm not a big fan of XML, so hard for me to get excited on
that score.  Also if I'm going to use a text-file gui description
thing, I'm probably only going to use it because some GUI tool was
able to spit it out for me automatically.  If I have to write the text
file, I don't see how it's all that much of an improvement over just
writing the GUI code to begin with.  Of course once you have the
load/save of GUI layouts worked out, it's just a "simple" matter of
making a GUI to create the layouts after that.

Other question I have is -- doesn't SWT already have something for
creating GUI layouts?

--bb
Mar 08 2009
next sibling parent reply TomD <t_demmer nospam.web.de> writes:
Bill Baxter Wrote:
[...]

 I was hoping you might get some comments on this.


Bad timing, together with Walter adding the backend sources :-)


 It seems to me a lot of people like the idea of XML files to configure
 a gui.  I'm not a big fan of XML, so hard for me to get excited on
 that score.  Also if I'm going to use a text-file gui description
 thing, I'm probably only going to use it because some GUI tool was
 able to spit it out for me automatically.  If I have to write the text
 file, I don't see how it's all that much of an improvement over just
 writing the GUI code to begin with.  Of course once you have the
 load/save of GUI layouts worked out, it's just a "simple" matter of
 making a GUI to create the layouts after that.


You are perfectly right here. The whole concept was done with
"glade" in mind. I like the idea of separating form and function.
For me personally, using xemacs in XML mode is already
"GUI enough"


 
 Other question I have is -- doesn't SWT already have something for
 creating GUI layouts?
 


Hmm, nothing that Frank so far commented about.

Ciao
TomD
Mar 08 2009
parent Frank Benoit <keinfarbton googlemail.com> writes:
TomD schrieb:

 Bill Baxter Wrote:
 [...]

 I was hoping you might get some comments on this.


 
 Bad timing, together with Walter adding the backend sources :-)
 

 It seems to me a lot of people like the idea of XML files to configure
 a gui.  I'm not a big fan of XML, so hard for me to get excited on
 that score.  Also if I'm going to use a text-file gui description
 thing, I'm probably only going to use it because some GUI tool was
 able to spit it out for me automatically.  If I have to write the text
 file, I don't see how it's all that much of an improvement over just
 writing the GUI code to begin with.  Of course once you have the
 load/save of GUI layouts worked out, it's just a "simple" matter of
 making a GUI to create the layouts after that.


 
 You are perfectly right here. The whole concept was done with
 "glade" in mind. I like the idea of separating form and function.
 For me personally, using xemacs in XML mode is already
 "GUI enough"
 

 Other question I have is -- doesn't SWT already have something for
 creating GUI layouts?


 Hmm, nothing that Frank so far commented about.
 
 Ciao
 TomD


There was some stuff about "XSWT" going on. I don't know how it is
related to the Eclipse/VEP and/or if it is alive.
Mar 09 2009
prev sibling parent Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com> writes:
Bill Baxter wrote:

 On Fri, Mar 6, 2009 at 5:47 AM, TomD <t_demmer nospam.web.de> wrote:

 Hi,
 I have uploaded xwt to
 http://demmer.kilu.de/Software/xwt_20090305.zip

 This is an extensible library that parses the XML description
 of a GUI. It is based on DWT, the SWT port to D, and Tango. In theory,
 it should run unaltered on Win32 and Linux, and one day also on OSX.

 The basic idea is to wrap all widgets into a class that implements a
 configure method for each widget. During load of the XML tree, the
 widget tree is built in parallel.

 I have included a couple of examples, so you get the idea.

 Feedback&bug reports welcome.


 
 I was hoping you might get some comments on this.
 It seems to me a lot of people like the idea of XML files to configure
 a gui.  I'm not a big fan of XML, so hard for me to get excited on
 that score.  Also if I'm going to use a text-file gui description
 thing, I'm probably only going to use it because some GUI tool was
 able to spit it out for me automatically.  If I have to write the text
 file, I don't see how it's all that much of an improvement over just
 writing the GUI code to begin with.  Of course once you have the
 load/save of GUI layouts worked out, it's just a "simple" matter of
 making a GUI to create the layouts after that.
 
 Other question I have is -- doesn't SWT already have something for
 creating GUI layouts?
 
 --bb


There are two eclipse plugins, VisualEditor from eclipse and 
WindowBuilder. Both are GUI builders and there is no xml involved. 
WindowBuilder is far superior but it's neither open source or free.
Mar 09 2009