=?utf-8?B?U2HFoWEgSmFuacWha2E=?= <gour atmarama.com> writes:

Hello,

After long pause and trying some other languages, I've decided to try
(again) with D for writing open-source multi-platform desktop (GUI)
application.

I've selected three different libraries:

a) dlangui (https://github.com/buggins/dlangui

b) GtkD (https://github.com/gtkd-developers/GtkD and

c) tkd (https://github.com/nomad-software/tkd)

Debian Linux (Sid, x86_64) is my native development platform, I use
Emacs editor, but would like to provide my app for both Mac & Windows
OS-es, so wonder if some more experienced D users can recommend which of
the above mentioned libraries are the most D-ish in sense to provide
things like more D-idiomatic API, properly taking care about memory
management (in general, I'd like to use SafeD), look on different
platforms, actively maintained, maturity, community around it etc.?


Sincerely,
Gour

--
Those who are on this path are resolute in purpose,
and their aim is one. O beloved child of the Kurus,
the intelligence of those who are irresolute is many-branched.

WebFreak001 <janju007 web.de> writes:

On Sunday, 13 March 2016 at 22:26:48 UTC, Saša Janiška wrote:
 a) dlangui (https://github.com/buggins/dlangui

 b) GtkD (https://github.com/gtkd-developers/GtkD and

 c) tkd (https://github.com/nomad-software/tkd)

I prefer GtkD, its the most system native one on linux and its 
well tested as its just a wrapper. It is quite big though.

If you need something smaller dlangui is definitely a good 
choice. Or you could write some basic stuff with SDL yourself.

I never tried tkd though. But in my opinion GtkD is currently the 
best one and the API is just awesome

=?utf-8?B?U2HFoWEgSmFuacWha2E=?= <gour atmarama.com> writes:

WebFreak001 <janju007 web.de> writes:

 I never tried tkd though. But in my opinion GtkD is currently the best
 one and the API is just awesome

Thank you.


Sincerely,
Gour

-- 
The spirit soul bewildered by the influence of false ego thinks
himself the doer of activities that are in actuality carried out
by the three modes of material nature.

Nick Sabalausky <SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com> writes:

On 03/13/2016 06:33 PM, WebFreak001 wrote:
 I prefer GtkD, its the most system native one on linux

I dispute that. Many people, like myself, use KDE rather than GNOME or 
Unity, and GTK programs are just as horrible to put up with in this 
environment as they are on Windows. Even more so since the GTK folks 
have now decided it's acceptable to remove an entire theming engine in a 
freaking point release. For that and various other reasons, GTK is a 
plague upon ANY operating system, and a big part of that ultimately 
comes down to colossal mismanagement - the one part of any project 
that's the hardest to fix.

WebFreak001 <janju007 web.de> writes:

On Friday, 25 March 2016 at 14:45:05 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
 On 03/13/2016 06:33 PM, WebFreak001 wrote:
 I prefer GtkD, its the most system native one on linux

 I dispute that. Many people, like myself, use KDE rather than 
 GNOME or Unity, and GTK programs are just as horrible to put up 
 with in this environment as they are on Windows. Even more so 
 since the GTK folks have now decided it's acceptable to remove 
 an entire theming engine in a freaking point release. For that 
 and various other reasons, GTK is a plague upon ANY operating 
 system, and a big part of that ultimately comes down to 
 colossal mismanagement - the one part of any project that's the 
 hardest to fix.

You are right, i forgot Qt/KDE guys. KDE uses Qt for their 
programs and stuff but GNOME and the Ubuntu team and most desktop 
environments do use GTK instead of Qt. Qt is more common on OS X 
and Windows than on linux. I guess there will never be an 
absolute winner to something because there are always people 
using something different.

Lets just make our own GTK/Qt thing (specialized for D) and make 
C wrappers for that. Then we have another party making that kind 
of stuff.

Nick Sabalausky <SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com> writes:

On 03/28/2016 01:21 PM, WebFreak001 wrote:
 You are right, i forgot Qt/KDE guys. KDE uses Qt for their programs and
 stuff but GNOME and the Ubuntu team and most desktop environments do use
 GTK instead of Qt. Qt is more common on OS X and Windows than on linux.
 I guess there will never be an absolute winner to something because
 there are always people using something different.

Win and Mac:
Qt looks native.

Linux/KDE:
Qt is native.

Linux/GNOME (and any other Linux DE based on GTK):
Use the QGtkStyle theme:
<https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Uniform_look_for_Qt_and_GTK_applications#QGtkStyle>
It's a theme for Qt that *uses* GTK to render, therefore actually being 
native. (I've never actually used it though, since I think native 
GTK/GNOME/etc looks visually awful regardless of theme. And those file 
dialogs, ugh! Wish I could nuke those from my entire system.)

Note that an equivalent of QGtkStyle which goes the other way (rendering 
GTK programs using Qt) is no longer possible since GTK recently 
eliminated non-CSS themes (in a point release, no less).

Therefore, Qt *is* the absolute winner here. It's basically native 
everywhere. GTK isn't, and without a major policy reversal, cannot be.

Gerald <gerald.b.nunn gmail.com> writes:

On Tuesday, 29 March 2016 at 17:37:15 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
 Linux/GNOME (and any other Linux DE based on GTK):
 Use the QGtkStyle theme:
 <https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Uniform_look_for_Qt_and_GTK_applications#QGtkStyle>
 It's a theme for Qt that *uses* GTK to render, therefore 
 actually being native. (I've never actually used it though, 
 since I think native GTK/GNOME/etc looks visually awful 
 regardless of theme. And those file dialogs, ugh! Wish I could 
 nuke those from my entire system.)

Well I'll disagree in that I much prefer the look of GTK 3 over 
Qt5, at least as I've seen it in KDE but that's a personal 
opinion. I run a Gnome/GTK3 environment so I avoid Qt apps as 
much as possible.

 Note that an equivalent of QGtkStyle which goes the other way 
 (rendering GTK programs using Qt) is no longer possible since 
 GTK recently eliminated non-CSS themes (in a point release, no 
 less).

I think this uses Gtk2 though and not Gtk3, there are some 
differences in how Gtk2 renders versus Gtk3 so it won't be 
completely seamless.

 Therefore, Qt *is* the absolute winner here. It's basically 
 native everywhere. GTK isn't, and without a major policy 
 reversal, cannot be.

Even though I love Gtk I will agree with this, for cross platform 
work Qt is a better option then Gtk, just too bad about the lack 
of bindings.

Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com> writes:

On 2016-03-29 19:37, Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 Win and Mac:
 Qt looks native.

For OS X, no not really. Although that might be due to the applications 
and not Qt.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg

Nick Sabalausky <SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com> writes:

On 03/30/2016 10:48 AM, Jacob Carlborg wrote:
 On 2016-03-29 19:37, Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 Win and Mac:
 Qt looks native.

 For OS X, no not really. Although that might be due to the applications
 and not Qt.

Last I used OSX even Apple's own programs were fairly inconsistent with 
each other. I guess that's changed?

In what ways does Qt stuff not look native on OSX? How does it compare 
to GTK on OSX?

Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com> writes:

On 2016-04-07 00:18, Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 Last I used OSX even Apple's own programs were fairly inconsistent with
 each other. I guess that's changed?

Not sure what you're referring to.

 In what ways does Qt stuff not look native on OSX?

I don't have a really good example that is Qt and not the application. 
One example that might be Qt is that most modal dialogs on OS X are 
action sheets. That is, a dialog that is attached to a window. Other 
examples are the main toolbar and preference windows. The rows of the 
colors in tables are wrong. I don't know what Qt offers so I don't 
really know if it's Qt or the application.

The icons for a Qt application usually looks alien but that's more a 
choice for the application than the framework, I would guess.

 How does it compare  to GTK on OSX?

Well, GTK doesn't even try to look native. It looks as it does on Linux, 
at least last time I used it. They actually have a native application 
menu now days.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg

Andrea Fontana <nospam example.com> writes:

On Tuesday, 29 March 2016 at 17:37:15 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
 Win and Mac:
 Qt looks native.

 Linux/KDE:
 Qt is native.

 Linux/GNOME (and any other Linux DE based on GTK):
 Use the QGtkStyle theme:

What about wxWidgets? It should be native "everywhere" too.

Luis <luis.panadero gmail.com> writes:

On Friday, 25 March 2016 at 14:45:05 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
 On 03/13/2016 06:33 PM, WebFreak001 wrote:
 I prefer GtkD, its the most system native one on linux

 I dispute that. Many people, like myself, use KDE rather than 
 GNOME or Unity, and GTK programs are just as horrible to put up 
 with in this environment as they are on Windows. Even more so 
 since the GTK folks have now decided it's acceptable to remove 
 an entire theming engine in a freaking point release. For that 
 and various other reasons, GTK is a plague upon ANY operating 
 system, and a big part of that ultimately comes down to 
 colossal mismanagement - the one part of any project that's the 
 hardest to fix.

I'm a KDE guy, I would love using Qt with D on way that at least 
would be equal easy that with Gtk. Sadly, using Qt with anything 
that isn't C++ usually would give you problems (MOC, Qt wrappers 
that usually get abandoned, etc)

Kagamin <spam here.lot> writes:

On Friday, 25 March 2016 at 14:45:05 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
 On 03/13/2016 06:33 PM, WebFreak001 wrote:
 I prefer GtkD, its the most system native one on linux

 I dispute that. Many people, like myself, use KDE rather than 
 GNOME or Unity, and GTK programs are just as horrible to put up 
 with in this environment as they are on Windows.

This was my experience with GTK2 and GTK3 too. They just look the 
same everywhere. Though given the underhanded state of GUI on 
linux what's ugly elsewhere is presumably ok for linux. Though 
there is probably evidence that GTK can be tuned for better look 
and feel (it provides quite some options), but it looks like it's 
not always done.
Qt applications are identifiable too :) but they are more or less 
ok.

Chris Wright <dhasenan gmail.com> writes:

On Sun, 13 Mar 2016 23:26:48 +0100, Saša Janiška wrote:
 which of
 the above mentioned libraries are the most D-ish in sense to provide
 things like more D-idiomatic API, properly taking care about memory
 management

I'm guessing dlangui will be best here, but GtkD is pretty good.

 (in general, I'd like to use SafeD),

You might be able to use model-view-presenter and keep the model and 
presenter  safe and the view  trusted, but  safe has poor adoption so far.

Interfacing with C requires copious use of  trusted, and there's little 
guidance on where we should use  trusted.

 look on different platforms,

dlangui will be consistent on different platforms. However, what I've 
seen in it doesn't support antialiasing, so it's kind of ugly.

 actively maintained,

GtkD and dlangui are both getting regular updates.

 maturity,

GtkD is based on GTK+, which is mature enough for anyone. GtkD itself is 
older than GitHub.

 community around it etc.?
 
 
 Sincerely,
 Gour

thedeemon <dlang thedeemon.com> writes:

On Sunday, 13 March 2016 at 22:49:30 UTC, Chris Wright wrote:
 dlangui will be consistent on different platforms. However, 
 what I've seen in it doesn't support antialiasing, so it's kind 
 of ugly.

DLangUI has several backends for drawing things in general 
(OpenGL / WinAPI / SFML / SDL...) and fonts in particular 
(libfreetype or OS-provided), I don't know what combinations 
you've seen. There is certainly some support for antialiasing in 
fonts, and most other things are drawn as bitmaps and scaled 
bitmaps (Android style 9 patch images), so they look just as good 
as you draw them in the source images, plus or minus 
interpolation when scaling the central parts.

=?utf-8?B?U2HFoWEgSmFuacWha2E=?= <gour atmarama.com> writes:

Chris Wright <dhasenan gmail.com> writes:

 I'm guessing dlangui will be best here, but GtkD is pretty good.

What might be some 'pro' of dlangui?

 You might be able to use model-view-presenter and keep the model and
 presenter  safe and the view  trusted, but  safe has poor adoption so
 far.

I recall reading something about in the past, somewhere, but wonder if
improving the situation in regard to  safe is still on the radar?

To me, it looks as great feature, especially considering competitive
languages like Rust which claim similar thing...

 Interfacing with C requires copious use of  trusted, and there's little 
 guidance on where we should use  trusted.

I hope that will improve as well.

 dlangui will be consistent on different platforms. However, what I've
 seen in it doesn't support antialiasing, so it's kind of ugly.

I see...god to know. Thanks.


Sincerely,
Gour

-- 
He is a perfect yogī who, by comparison to his own self,
sees the true equality of all beings, in both their
happiness and their distress, O Arjuna!

Chris Wright <dhasenan gmail.com> writes:

On Mon, 14 Mar 2016 08:52:37 +0100, Saša Janiška wrote:

 Chris Wright <dhasenan gmail.com> writes:
 
 I'm guessing dlangui will be best here, but GtkD is pretty good.

 
 What might be some 'pro' of dlangui?

dlangui is written entirely in D, which makes it a little easier to make 
it more D-ish. That certainly doesn't mean it's definitely more D-ish, of 
course; it's just a guess.

thedeemon <dlang thedeemon.com> writes:

On Monday, 14 March 2016 at 18:54:31 UTC, Chris Wright wrote:

 I'm guessing dlangui will be best here, but GtkD is pretty 
 good.

 
 What might be some 'pro' of dlangui?

 dlangui is written entirely in D, which makes it a little 
 easier to make it more D-ish. That certainly doesn't mean it's 
 definitely more D-ish, of course; it's just a guess.

It is quite "D-ish", using the power of D metaprogramming and D 
syntax quite effectively in some places.

One big 'pro' of dlangui for me is that you can get a 
self-contained 1-2 MB binary without dependencies on any DLLs. 
Small to download, easy to run, no need for the user to install 
anything.

Another one is DML, an analog of QML:
http://stuff.thedeemon.com/lj/dml.png

Third one is 100% customizability thanks to drawing everything by 
dlangui, so you can change any visual aspect you need. Often 
without changing code, because there is support for "themes" that 
can even be switched at runtime. But having full source code in D 
helps too.

One downside of dlangui is that docs are often scarce and not 
enough, sometimes you need to read source code to see how it 
works and shall be used.

=?utf-8?B?U2HFoWEgSmFuacWha2E=?= <gour atmarama.com> writes:

thedeemon <dlang thedeemon.com> writes:

 It is quite "D-ish", using the power of D metaprogramming and D syntax
 quite effectively in some places.

That's nice.

 One big 'pro' of dlangui for me is that you can get a self-contained
 1-2 MB binary without dependencies on any DLLs. Small to download,
 easy to run, no need for the user to install anything.

That's cool as well.

 Another one is DML, an analog of QML:
 http://stuff.thedeemon.com/lj/dml.png

is there some GUI build for DML?

 Third one is 100% customizability thanks to drawing everything by
 dlangui, so you can change any visual aspect you need. Often without
 changing code, because there is support for "themes" that can even be
 switched at runtime. But having full source code in D helps too.

Uhh...it seems it's another one I've to check ore thoroughly.

With some other languages, it was hard to find *single* decent GUI
option, while now I see there are plenty options for D. :-)

 One downside of dlangui is that docs are often scarce and not enough,
 sometimes you need to read source code to see how it works and shall
 be used.

Well, although there are several GUI options for D, it would be nice if
the force would be joined to have *one* native D GUI library using
native look and feel which seems to be more important for OS-es like Mac
& Windows...


Sincerely,
Gour

-- 
One who sees inaction in action, and action in inaction,
is intelligent among men, and he is in the transcendental position,
although engaged in all sorts of activities.

thedeemon <dlang thedeemon.com> writes:

On Tuesday, 15 March 2016 at 10:31:40 UTC, Saša Janiška wrote:

 Another one is DML, an analog of QML: 
 http://stuff.thedeemon.com/lj/dml.png

 is there some GUI build for DML?

In the examples coming with DLangUI there is an app where on the 
left you enter some DML text and on the right you see it rendered 
as GUI, so at least you don't have to recompile anything while 
experimenting. But there is no graphical editor where you would 
move things around with a mouse. (there is one for DFL though, 
it's a nice GUI lib for Windows, a thin wrapper around WinAPI 
with code looking a lot like WinForms)

Vadim Lopatin <coolreader.org gmail.com> writes:

On Sunday, 13 March 2016 at 22:49:30 UTC, Chris Wright wrote:
 dlangui will be consistent on different platforms. However, 
 what I've seen in it doesn't support antialiasing, so it's kind 
 of ugly.

DlangUI does support antialiasing for font rendering and as well 
provides some enhancements like Gamma setting for fonts.

Although, subpixel antialiasing (aka Clear Type) is supported 
only for software rendering.
(I've not managed to implement it using OpenGL shader).

FreeSlave <freeslave93 gmail.com> writes:

On Sunday, 13 March 2016 at 22:26:48 UTC, Saša Janiška wrote:
 Hello,

 After long pause and trying some other languages, I've decided 
 to try
 (again) with D for writing open-source multi-platform desktop 
 (GUI)
 application.

 I've selected three different libraries:

 a) dlangui (https://github.com/buggins/dlangui

 b) GtkD (https://github.com/gtkd-developers/GtkD and

 c) tkd (https://github.com/nomad-software/tkd)

 Debian Linux (Sid, x86_64) is my native development platform, I 
 use Emacs editor, but would like to provide my app for both Mac 
 & Windows OS-es, so wonder if some more experienced D users can 
 recommend which of the above mentioned libraries are the most 
 D-ish in sense to provide things like more D-idiomatic API, 
 properly taking care about memory management (in general, I'd 
 like to use SafeD), look on different platforms, actively 
 maintained, maturity, community around it etc.?


 Sincerely,
 Gour

DlangUI is still not mature enough. It lacks some features and 
has many issues. So be ready to encounter bugs and report them to 
author.

GTK-D is ok if you're ok with gtk on Windows and OSX.

=?utf-8?B?U2HFoWEgSmFuacWha2E=?= <gour atmarama.com> writes:

FreeSlave <freeslave93 gmail.com> writes:

 GTK-D is ok if you're ok with gtk on Windows and OSX.

Well, considering there are not many other options like wx/Qt which
seems to big, I can probably live with it being aware that GTK is
thrilling neither on Mac nor on Windows, but there are some apps Pro
apps like Ardour used on Mac...Moreover, I do run GNOME, so it
will, at least, look good on my native desktop, while some other
languages do not even have stable GTK bindings. :-)


Sincerely,
Gour

-- 
An intelligent person does not take part in the sources of misery,
which are due to contact with the material senses. O son of Kuntī,
such pleasures have a beginning and an end, and so the wise man does
not delight in them.

Gerald <gerald.b.nunn gmail.com> writes:

On Sunday, 13 March 2016 at 22:26:48 UTC, Saša Janiška wrote:
 a) dlangui (https://github.com/buggins/dlangui

I've never tried it, however having been down this road before 
(i.e. non-native widgets) with Java Swing I have no great desire 
to try something in a similar vein, so that ruled it out for me.

 b) GtkD (https://github.com/gtkd-developers/GtkD and

I'm using this now to build native Linux applications and for 
that it's a great choice. GTK is very mature and the GtkD wrapper 
has been around a long time. GtkD does a good job of wrapping the 
API in a way that just works and managing the widgets is 
integrated into the GC. The maintainer of GtkD is very responsive 
and does a great job keeping it up to date.

Personally, I'm rather surprised there are not more Linux GUI GTK 
apps out there written in D considering how well it works.

I'll temper my enthusiasm though by saying I've never used it for 
cross-platform purposes, I'm only interested in writing native 
Linux apps at this point in time. For that need GtkD is an 
excellent candidate IMHO. However, it should be easy to google a 
bit and get some opinions with regards to GTK on other platforms.

 c) tkd (https://github.com/nomad-software/tkd)

Never used it and didn't look at it so no comment.

=?utf-8?B?U2HFoWEgSmFuacWha2E=?= <gour atmarama.com> writes:

Gerald <gerald.b.nunn gmail.com> writes:

 I've never tried it, however having been down this road before (i.e.
 non-native widgets) with Java Swing I have no great desire to try
 something in a similar vein, so that ruled it out for me.

I know that there is/was DWT, but I was also not excited with it when
considering that option in the past.

 I'm using this now to build native Linux applications and for that
 it's a great choice. GTK is very mature and the GtkD wrapper has been
 around a long time. GtkD does a good job of wrapping the API in a way
 that just works and managing the widgets is integrated into the GC.
 The maintainer of GtkD is very responsive and does a great job keeping
 it up to date.

Thanks a lot for sharing - it looks as the GtkD is the most viable
option.

 Personally, I'm rather surprised there are not more Linux GUI GTK apps
 out there written in D considering how well it works.

Thank you for encouraging words, I'll try to do my best to contribute.

 I'll temper my enthusiasm though by saying I've never used it for
 cross-platform purposes, I'm only interested in writing native Linux
 apps at this point in time.

Frankly speaking that's also what I'm mostly interested in, especially
considering that it seems that both Windows and Mac are becoming hostile
platforms for 'non-playstor' apps, but if it can be done, why not.

Moreover, personally I do have neither access to Mac OS machine, nor do
I plan to buy one and Win XP was the last Windows license I had (tied to
my old notebook) and then it was mostly used under Virtualbox.

Now, I'll ask some GtkD related questions in another (GtkD) forum.


Sincerely,
Gour

-- 
One who restrains the senses of action but whose mind dwells on
sense objects certainly deludes himself and is called a pretender.

Jaocb Carlborg <doob me.com> writes:

On Sunday, 13 March 2016 at 22:26:48 UTC, Saša Janiška wrote:
 Hello,

 After long pause and trying some other languages, I've decided 
 to try
 (again) with D for writing open-source multi-platform desktop 
 (GUI)
 application.

 I've selected three different libraries:

 a) dlangui (https://github.com/buggins/dlangui

 b) GtkD (https://github.com/gtkd-developers/GtkD and

 c) tkd (https://github.com/nomad-software/tkd)

 Debian Linux (Sid, x86_64) is my native development platform, I 
 use Emacs editor, but would like to provide my app for both Mac 
 & Windows OS-es, so wonder if some more experienced D users can 
 recommend which of the above mentioned libraries are the most 
 D-ish in sense to provide things like more D-idiomatic API, 
 properly taking care about memory management (in general, I'd 
 like to use SafeD), look on different platforms, actively 
 maintained, maturity, community around it etc.?

It depends on which requirements you have. Mostly native vs 
non-native. For example, anything that is non-native or doesn't 
look native is not acceptable on OS X.

There's DWT [1] as well. Which uses native drawing operations and 
are completely written in D. Although it has more Java like 
interface and there's no support for OS X.

[1] https://github.com/nomad-software/tkd

--
/Jacob Carlborg

=?utf-8?B?U2HFoWEgSmFuacWha2E=?= <gour atmarama.com> writes:

Jaocb Carlborg <doob me.com> writes:

 There's DWT [1] as well.

Wrong URL. ;)

I know about DWT, but when I was considering D in the past, DWT was not
actively developed and was, iirc, in kind of maint. mode only.

 Which uses native drawing operations and are completely written in D.

That's nice.

 Although it has more Java like interface

I must admit I'm totally ignorant about Java and I neither use like the
language nor do I use any Java app. :-)

 and there's no support for OS  X.

If you say that "anything that is non-native or doesn't look native is
not acceptable on OS X" what is the advantage of DWT in comparison with
GtkD for Mac OS?


Sincerely,
Gour

-- 
A person is considered still further advanced when he regards honest
well-wishers, affectionate benefactors, the neutral, mediators, the envious,
friends and enemies, the pious and the sinners all with an equal mind.

Luis <luis.panadero gmail.com> writes:

On Monday, 14 March 2016 at 09:20:08 UTC, Saša Janiška wrote:
 Jaocb Carlborg <doob me.com> writes:

 and there's no support for OS  X.

 If you say that "anything that is non-native or doesn't look 
 native is not acceptable on OS X" what is the advantage of DWT 
 in comparison with GtkD for Mac OS?


 Sincerely,
 Gour

A bit offtopic, but I think that we need is our D-ish wxWidgets 
equivalent. In other words, a GUI that uses native widgets across 
plataforms and all the power of D.

=?utf-8?B?U2HFoWEgSmFuacWha2E=?= <gour atmarama.com> writes:

Luis <luis.panadero gmail.com> writes:

 A bit offtopic, but I think that we need is our D-ish wxWidgets
 equivalent. In other words, a GUI that uses native widgets across
 plataforms and all the power of D.

Well, I see that wxWidgets is mature product and is heavily struggling
with manpower to maintain and further develop it, so I believe that at
the moment such ambitious project is well beyond the scope of D
community.


Sincerely,
Gour

-- 
An intelligent person does not take part in the sources of misery,
which are due to contact with the material senses. O son of Kuntī,
such pleasures have a beginning and an end, and so the wise man does
not delight in them.

Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com> writes:

On 14/03/16 10:20, Saša Janiška wrote:
 Jaocb Carlborg <doob me.com> writes:

 There's DWT [1] as well.

 Wrong URL. ;)

How embarrassing :). Here is the correct URL [1] for reference.

 I must admit I'm totally ignorant about Java and I neither use like the
 language nor do I use any Java app. :-)

"interface" would in this case refer to the API of the code and not the 
GUI of an application.


 If you say that "anything that is non-native or doesn't look native is
 not acceptable on OS X" what is the advantage of DWT in comparison with
 GtkD for Mac OS?

Well, currently there is no support for OS X so if that's a requirement 
then DWT will obviously not work. Personally I would not create an 
application for OS X at all if it did not have a native GUI.

A couple of years ago I started on an OS X port [2], but I've abandoned 
that in favor of automating the porting process [3]. The automated 
process is intended to work for all platforms.

If the OS X port was complete, the advantage over GtkD would be that it 
would be native.

[1] https://github.com/d-widget-toolkit/dwt
[2] https://github.com/d-widget-toolkit/dwt-mac
[3] https://github.com/d-widget-toolkit/jport/tree/dev

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg

=?utf-8?B?U2HFoWEgSmFuacWha2E=?= <gour atmarama.com> writes:

Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com> writes:

 Well, currently there is no support for OS X so if that's a
 requirement then DWT will obviously not work.

Well, OS X and Windows are 'nice to have'.

 Personally I would not create an application for OS X at all if it did
 not have a native GUI.

It would be nice to have bindings for wx, but if not...

 A couple of years ago I started on an OS X port [2], but I've
 abandoned that in favor of automating the porting process [3].

So, DWT works on Mac OS, but it's not native as GtkD and you do not have
intention to work on OS X port, right?

 If the OS X port was complete, the advantage over GtkD would be that
 it would be native.

That's clear. 


Sincerely,
Gour

-- 
The senses, the mind and the intelligence are the sitting places
of this lust. Through them lust covers the real knowledge of the
living entity and bewilders him.

Jaocb Carlborg <doob me.com> writes:

On Monday, 14 March 2016 at 20:26:51 UTC, Saša Janiška wrote:

 Well, OS X and Windows are 'nice to have'.

DWT already works on Windows where it uses native drawing 
operations.

 So, DWT works on Mac OS, but it's not native as GtkD and you do 
 not have intention to work on OS X port, right?

No, DWT does _not_ work on OS X, neither native nor non-native. 
I'm working on the OS X port indirectly. The automated process 
should work for all ports.

Another advantage for DWT would be that since it's native, it has 
no dependencies except for what's already provided by the system.

--
/Jacob Carlborg

Luis <luis.panadero gmail.com> writes:

On Tuesday, 15 March 2016 at 08:37:13 UTC, Jaocb Carlborg wrote:
 On Monday, 14 March 2016 at 20:26:51 UTC, Saša Janiška wrote:

 Well, OS X and Windows are 'nice to have'.

 DWT already works on Windows where it uses native drawing 
 operations.

 So, DWT works on Mac OS, but it's not native as GtkD and you 
 do not have intention to work on OS X port, right?

 No, DWT does _not_ work on OS X, neither native nor non-native. 
 I'm working on the OS X port indirectly. The automated process 
 should work for all ports.

 Another advantage for DWT would be that since it's native, it 
 has no dependencies except for what's already provided by the 
 system.

 --
 /Jacob Carlborg

Suddenly I have interest on DWT. I thought that was a simple copy 
of SWT, not being native...

Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com> writes:

On 15/03/16 10:35, Luis wrote:

 Suddenly I have interest on DWT. I thought that was a simple copy of
 SWT, not being native...

DWT is the Java code from SWT ported to D. It's native both as in native 
machine code and using native drawing operations.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg

Kagamin <spam here.lot> writes:

On Tuesday, 15 March 2016 at 09:35:07 UTC, Luis wrote:
 Suddenly I have interest on DWT. I thought that was a simple 
 copy of SWT, not being native...

Swing is custom-drawn like dlangui, Qt, GTK and WPF. SWT is a 
relatively thin wrapper over system controls like wxWidgets, IUP 
and DFL.

Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com> writes:

On 17/03/16 15:21, Kagamin wrote:

 Swing is custom-drawn like dlangui, Qt, GTK and WPF. SWT is a relatively
 thin wrapper over system controls like wxWidgets, IUP and DFL.

There's actually quite a lot of code in SWT to make it behave 
consistently on all platforms.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg

=?utf-8?B?U2HFoWEgSmFuacWha2E=?= <gour atmarama.com> writes:

Jaocb Carlborg <doob me.com> writes:

 No, DWT does _not_ work on OS X, neither native nor non-native. I'm
 working on the OS X port indirectly. The automated process should work
 for all ports.

OK, the main thing for now it would be that it works on Linux...but I
have some problems - see DWT group.

 Another advantage for DWT would be that since it's native, it has no
 dependencies except for what's already provided by the system.

That sounds very nice - something like wxWidgets, although I admit my
experience with Java/SWT is zero. :-(


Sincerely,
Gour

-- 
In the material world, one who is unaffected by whatever good
or evil he may obtain, neither praising it nor despising it,
is firmly fixed in perfect knowledge.

Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com> writes:

On 15/03/16 11:23, Saša Janiška wrote:

 That sounds very nice - something like wxWidgets, although I admit my
 experience with Java/SWT is zero. :-(

There's a lot of documentation online for SWT. Most of the examples can 
be applied to DWT as well with none to minimal code changes. Some of the 
official SWT snippets have been ported to D as well and are included in 
the "org.eclipse.swt.snippets" submodule.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg

tensor <aa gmail.com> writes:

On Tuesday, 15 March 2016 at 08:37:13 UTC, Jaocb Carlborg wrote:
 On Monday, 14 March 2016 at 20:26:51 UTC, Saša Janiška wrote:

 Well, OS X and Windows are 'nice to have'.

 DWT already works on Windows where it uses native drawing 
 operations.

 So, DWT works on Mac OS, but it's not native as GtkD and you 
 do not have intention to work on OS X port, right?

 No, DWT does _not_ work on OS X, neither native nor non-native. 
 I'm working on the OS X port indirectly. The automated process 
 should work for all ports.

 Another advantage for DWT would be that since it's native, it 
 has no dependencies except for what's already provided by the 
 system.

 --
 /Jacob Carlborg

Jacob, thanks for your great work in porting DWT. Is your 
automatic tool, when finished, generic enough to port Java 
packages other than SWT?

Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com> writes:

On 18/03/16 19:48, tensor wrote:

 Jacob, thanks for your great work in porting DWT.

Thanks :)

 Is your automatic tool, when finished, generic enough to port Java packages
other than SWT?

I'll write the tool with the goal of porting SWT. If any processing is 
required that is specific for the SWT code that will require a specific 
command line option to enable.

It should work for any Java code that is limited to the parts of Java 
that SWT uses. For example, no Java 8 features will be supported, unless 
SWT starts to use them. The SWT code is quite conservative, I would 
expect the biggest issue would be the standard library. Example, SWT 
uses raw arrays instead of something like ArrayList.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg

Martin Tschierschke <mt smartdolphin.de> writes:

On Sunday, 13 March 2016 at 22:26:48 UTC, Saša Janiška wrote:

 b) GtkD (https://github.com/gtkd-developers/GtkD and

There may be more or better, but I found this tutorial useful:
http://www.britseyeview.com/software/articles/ :

Getting Started with Gtkd:
http://www.britseyeview.com/software/articles/gsgtkd101.html
Regrads mt.

Luis <luis.panadero gmail.com> writes:

On Sunday, 13 March 2016 at 22:26:48 UTC, Saša Janiška wrote:

 I've selected three different libraries:

 a) dlangui (https://github.com/buggins/dlangui

 b) GtkD (https://github.com/gtkd-developers/GtkD and

 c) tkd (https://github.com/nomad-software/tkd)

 Debian Linux (Sid, x86_64) is my native development platform, I 
 use Emacs editor, but would like to provide my app for both Mac 
 & Windows OS-es, so wonder if some more experienced D users can 
 recommend which of the above mentioned libraries are the most 
 D-ish in sense to provide things like more D-idiomatic API, 
 properly taking care about memory management (in general, I'd 
 like to use SafeD), look on different platforms, actively 
 maintained, maturity, community around it etc.?

If I remember correctly tkd just works on Windows installing 
tk/tcl. GtkD compiling on windows is a bit more tricky, as 
actually dub gives linking errors or the executable crashes if 
you try using it directly. However on Linux works very fine. I 
updated the install guide on his wiki -> 
https://github.com/gtkd-developers/GtkD/wiki/Installing-on-Windows

A short resume would be :

1. Install Gtk binaries
2. Download GtkD and compile it for 32 or 64 bits
3. "Install" it, editing your sc.ini on c:\D\
4. Tweak your dub.json/sdl to avoid download&compile GtkD on 
Windows. Only link against GtkD (example : 
https://github.com/Zardoz89/DEDCPU-16/blob/develop/dub.sdl#L6 )

About how well works GtkD, I would say :

- Gtk becomes a lot more easier with a OO language.
- GtkD webpage documentation is a bit of .... There is someone 
with a script to generate a ddox documentation, that I should try.

Jordi Sayol via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> writes:

El 14/03/16 a les 17:13, Luis via Digitalmars-d ha escrit:
 If I remember correctly tkd just works on Windows installing tk/tcl.

TkD works on Linux. there are available deb packages at d-apt
<http://d-apt.sourceforge.net/>

Zardoz <luis.panadero gmail.com> writes:

On Monday, 14 March 2016 at 20:41:52 UTC, Jordi Sayol wrote:
 El 14/03/16 a les 17:13, Luis via Digitalmars-d ha escrit:
 If I remember correctly tkd just works on Windows installing 
 tk/tcl.

 TkD works on Linux. there are available deb packages at d-apt 
 <http://d-apt.sourceforge.net/>

Sorry for my poor English. I like to say that ON windows just 
works without need of doing something tricky. Of course, on Linux 
it works.

=?utf-8?B?U2HFoWEgSmFuacWha2E=?= <gour atmarama.com> writes:

Jordi Sayol via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> writes:

 TkD works on Linux.

Have you used it and/or what would be some prp/cons vs GtkD?


Sincerely,
Gour

-- 
One who is able to withdraw his senses from sense objects,
as the tortoise draws its limbs within the shell,
is firmly fixed in perfect consciousness.

Luis <luis.panadero gmail.com> writes:

On Tuesday, 15 March 2016 at 07:50:48 UTC, Saša Janiška wrote:
 Jordi Sayol via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> 
 writes:

 TkD works on Linux.

 Have you used it and/or what would be some prp/cons vs GtkD?


 Sincerely,
 Gour

I only tested the examples when I was searching an alternative to 
GtkD when I got troubles on Windows with GtkD. I ended fixing it 
doing the hackish thing that I did on my dub.sdl, so I don't need 
to use TkD

Gary Willoughby <dev nomad.so> writes:

On Tuesday, 15 March 2016 at 07:50:48 UTC, Saša Janiška wrote:
 Jordi Sayol via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> 
 writes:

 TkD works on Linux.

 Have you used it and/or what would be some prp/cons vs GtkD?


 Sincerely,
 Gour

I'm the author of Tkd and it depends on your need to which 
library to use.

Tkd is truly cross-platform (Linux, Mac and Windows), very simple 
to understand and 'just works' with very little effort but it's 
not very modern. So I think Tkd is useful for rapid prototyping 
and creating easily maintainable internal tools, etc.

Gtk-d is more of a robust, industry strength, modern library but 
suffers from poor documentation and can get quite complicated to 
use.

Dlangui looks good but is in early development and not quite 
finished.

Personally, I'd use Tkd for quick and nasty stuff and Gtk-d for 
real commercial applications.

=?utf-8?B?U2HFoWEgSmFuacWha2E=?= <gour atmarama.com> writes:

Gary Willoughby <dev nomad.so> writes:

 Tkd is truly cross-platform (Linux, Mac and Windows), very simple to
 understand and 'just works' with very little effort but it's not very
 modern.

When you say 'modern' do you consider lack of some 'modern' widget or
just general look (although I read that it improved in 8.6 or so)?

 Tkd is useful for rapid prototyping and creating easily maintainable
 internal tools, etc.

 Gtk-d is more of a robust, industry strength, modern library but
 suffers from poor documentation and can get quite complicated to use.

 Dlangui looks good but is in early development and not quite finished.

Thank you for sharing.

 Personally, I'd use Tkd for quick and nasty stuff and Gtk-d for real
 commercial applications.

I'm in between - targetting real, but open-source apps. :-)


Sincerely,
Gour

-- 
One who is not disturbed in mind even amidst the threefold
miseries or elated when there is happiness, and who is free
from attachment, fear and anger, is called a sage of steady mind.

Gary Willoughby <dev nomad.so> writes:

On Wednesday, 16 March 2016 at 19:51:37 UTC, Saša Janiška wrote:
 When you say 'modern' do you consider lack of some 'modern' 
 widget or just general look (although I read that it improved 
 in 8.6 or so)?

Sometimes the widgets don't look 100% native. You can take a look 
at the example if you want. Download the repo and run:

dub run --config=example

=?utf-8?B?U2HFoWEgSmFuacWha2E=?= <gour atmarama.com> writes:

Gary Willoughby <dev nomad.so> writes:

 Sometimes the widgets don't look 100% native. You can take a look at
 the example if you want.

I did and it must say it looks pretty good. ;)

At the end, the look is not all in all...how is tkd in regard to memory
management etc.?


Sincerely,
Gour

-- 
As a strong wind sweeps away a boat on the water,
even one of the roaming senses on which the mind
focuses can carry away a man's intelligence.

Karabuta <Karabutaworld gmail.com> writes:

On Sunday, 13 March 2016 at 22:26:48 UTC, Saša Janiška wrote:
 Hello,

 After long pause and trying some other languages, I've decided 
 to try
 (again) with D for writing open-source multi-platform desktop 
 (GUI)
 application.

 I've selected three different libraries:

 a) dlangui (https://github.com/buggins/dlangui

DlangUI has a nice API design but still need serious design and 
art work to catch up with Gtk 3.18 - 2.0 in terms of UI look and 
feel. I also find that it just have basic widgets. With Gtk you 
have Switch, Stack, Notebook, HeaderBar, and many modern input 
widgets for a modern GUI toolkit.

 b) GtkD (https://github.com/gtkd-developers/GtkD and

Modern as it has gone through a lot of Widget try and error for 
the past few years. Currently looks realy great(on linux) and 
more matured. It's almost like Qt built for Linux in terms of 
features :) Unfortunately being old and written in C has 
introduced some bad API design, inconsistencies and naming 
conventions which makes using it for advanced/complex stuff 
really tedious. A Projects like elementary OS have built a 
framework (granite) on top of Gtk which makes things a bit easy 
for their developers(unfortunately it can only be used in Vala 
and it's design for their desktop environment (Pantheon). 
Recently, Gtk is introducing/advancing CSS integration which 
might bring down the complexity and more customization. It 
recommended Gtk ATM if you care more about Linux.

 c) tkd (https://github.com/nomad-software/tkd)

Tkd works on Windows and Linux in my experience but look like 
from the 1980s - 90s. It's Look will definitely not sell when 
used for commercial (in 2016). Moreover it lacks some modern 
Widgets. However, it has IMO a really nice API design and it's 
easy for quick prototyping and it's also more stable.


I run on Linux so i would sadly go for Gtk :( whilst keeping an 
eye on DlangUI

=?utf-8?B?U2HFoWEgSmFuacWha2E=?= <gour atmarama.com> writes:

Karabuta <Karabutaworld gmail.com> writes:

 I run on Linux so i would sadly go for Gtk :( whilst keeping an eye on
 DlangUI

Do you have any opinion for DWT (https://github.com/d-widget-toolkit/dwt
which *might* be a nice one?


Sincerely,
Gour

-- 
Many, many births both you and I have passed. I can remember
all of them, but you cannot, O subduer of the enemy!

Karabuta <Karabutaworld gmail.com> writes:

On Wednesday, 16 March 2016 at 07:26:24 UTC, Saša Janiška wrote:
 Karabuta <Karabutaworld gmail.com> writes:

 I run on Linux so i would sadly go for Gtk :( whilst keeping 
 an eye on DlangUI

 Do you have any opinion for DWT 
 (https://github.com/d-widget-toolkit/dwt which *might* be a 
 nice one?


 Sincerely,
 Gour

My dear, forget about DWT, not a chance :)

Vadim Lopatin <coolreader.org gmail.com> writes:

On Tuesday, 15 March 2016 at 22:26:15 UTC, Karabuta wrote:
 DlangUI has a nice API design but still need serious design and 
 art work to catch up with Gtk 3.18 - 2.0 in terms of UI look 
 and feel. I also find that it just have basic widgets. With Gtk 
 you have Switch, Stack, Notebook, HeaderBar, and many modern 
 input widgets for a modern GUI toolkit.

Some of such widgets are easy to implement.
Switch - just need to add new style for button to theme.
Switch, Stack, Notebook, HeaderBar - new styles for TabHeader, 
TabHost, TabWidget
Can be implemented in one day.

Some other controls like Rich Edit or HTML view are much harder 
to implement, and require a lot of development time.

Making of OSX native looking controls seems easy - new theme 
based on OSX screenshots is to be created.

=?utf-8?B?U2HFoWEgSmFuacWha2E=?= <gour atmarama.com> writes:

Vadim Lopatin <coolreader.org gmail.com> writes:

 Some of such widgets are easy to implement.
 Switch - just need to add new style for button to theme.

You already did it, right?

 Switch, Stack, Notebook, HeaderBar - new styles for TabHeader,
 TabHost, TabWidget Can be implemented in one day.

It sounds good. ;)

 Some other controls like Rich Edit or HTML view are much harder to
 implement, and require a lot of development time.

OK.

 Making of OSX native looking controls seems easy - new theme based on
 OSX screenshots is to be created.

What about integration with Mac OS, iirc, it has some (strange to me)
habit of stealing app's functions and display them as system function or
something (I recall trying to finish some video work on friend's laptop
using Premiere and it was unforgettable experience which lead me to
think what do the people really fond of with that OS...


Sincerely,
Gour

-- 
It is far better to discharge one's prescribed duties, even though
faultily, than another's duties perfectly. Destruction in the course of
performing one's own duty is better than engaging in another's duties,
for to follow another's path is dangerous.

Vadim Lopatin <coolreader.org gmail.com> writes:

On Wednesday, 16 March 2016 at 19:56:42 UTC, Saša Janiška wrote:
 What about integration with Mac OS, iirc, it has some (strange 
 to me) habit of stealing app's functions and display them as 
 system function or something (I recall trying to finish some 
 video work on friend's laptop using Premiere and it was 
 unforgettable experience which lead me to think what do the 
 people really fond of with that OS...

Currently DlangUI uses libSDL2 as a backend for OSX.
Most wanted feature for OSX is not a look & feel, but support of 
native OSX menu.
(Same for Gnome and other DEs with common menu bar)

Not sure if it's easy to use OSX system theme resources in 
DlangUI.


Best regards,
     Vadim

=?utf-8?B?U2HFoWEgSmFuacWha2E=?= <gour atmarama.com> writes:

Vadim Lopatin <coolreader.org gmail.com> writes:

 Most wanted feature for OSX is not a look & feel, but support of native OSX
 menu.

That's really strange for me, but, otoh, I'm aware that "De gustibus non
est disputandum" :-)

 Not sure if it's easy to use OSX system theme resources in DlangUI.

OK.


Sincerely,
Gour

-- 
A person who has given up all desires for sense gratification,
who lives free from desires, who has given up all sense of
proprietorship and is devoid of false ego — he alone can
attain real peace.

Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com> writes:

On 17/03/16 12:23, Saša Janiška wrote:

 That's really strange for me, but, otoh, I'm aware that "De gustibus non
 est disputandum" :-)

I don't agree. I want everything to look native, not just the menu ;)

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg

=?utf-8?B?U2HFoWEgSmFuacWha2E=?= <gour atmarama.com> writes:

Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com> writes:

 I don't agree. I want everything to look native, not just the menu ;)

Considering that I'm on Linux, I'm happy there is no such thing as
'native', but there is choice, although in my case it's GNOME/GTK. ;)


Sincerely,
Gour

-- 
One who sees inaction in action, and action in inaction,
is intelligent among men, and he is in the transcendental position,
although engaged in all sorts of activities.

Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com> writes:

On 18/03/16 08:54, Saša Janiška wrote:

 Considering that I'm on Linux, I'm happy there is no such thing as
 'native', but there is choice, although in my case it's GNOME/GTK. ;)

I assume you still want it to look consistent across all applications. 
It would look pretty bad if one of the applications looked like 
something from OS X.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg

Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com> writes:

On 17/03/16 05:54, Vadim Lopatin wrote:

 Currently DlangUI uses libSDL2 as a backend for OSX.
 Most wanted feature for OSX is not a look & feel, but support of native
 OSX menu.
 (Same for Gnome and other DEs with common menu bar)

How is native OS X menu not look & feel?

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg

Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com> writes:

On 16/03/16 20:56, Saša Janiška wrote:

 What about integration with Mac OS, iirc, it has some (strange to me)
 habit of stealing app's functions and display them as system function or
 something (I recall trying to finish some video work on friend's laptop
 using Premiere and it was unforgettable experience which lead me to
 think what do the people really fond of with that OS...

Not sure what you're referring to. The "Services" menu?

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg

=?utf-8?B?U2HFoWEgSmFuacWha2E=?= <gour atmarama.com> writes:

Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com> writes:

 Not sure what you're referring to. The "Services" menu?

Probably...although my experience with Mac OS is very limited...


Sincerely,
Gour

-- 
From wherever the mind wanders due to its flickering and unsteady
nature, one must certainly withdraw it and bring it back under
the control of the self.

Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com> writes:

On 18/03/16 08:52, Saša Janiška wrote:

 Probably...although my experience with Mac OS is very limited...

I can't recall I ever have used it. If it's not present, I don't think 
it will be missed.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg

Karabuta <Karabutaworld gmail.com> writes:

On Wednesday, 16 March 2016 at 09:44:22 UTC, Vadim Lopatin wrote:
 On Tuesday, 15 March 2016 at 22:26:15 UTC, Karabuta wrote:
 DlangUI has a nice API design but still need serious design 
 and art work to catch up with Gtk 3.18 - 2.0 in terms of UI 
 look and feel. I also find that it just have basic widgets. 
 With Gtk you have Switch, Stack, Notebook, HeaderBar, and many 
 modern input widgets for a modern GUI toolkit.

 Some of such widgets are easy to implement.
 Switch - just need to add new style for button to theme.
 Switch, Stack, Notebook, HeaderBar - new styles for TabHeader, 
 TabHost, TabWidget
 Can be implemented in one day.

 Some other controls like Rich Edit or HTML view are much harder 
 to implement, and require a lot of development time.

 Making of OSX native looking controls seems easy - new theme 
 based on OSX screenshots is to be created.

Well, the absence of those widgets is what keeps me from 
completely adopting DlangUI for my projects. I wish they were 
added. Modern UI is not just textboxes, lables and tables. Once 
those widgets are added,I will create my own themes and make it 
super great.