Hi,

I am one of the co-authors of FLTK. I like 'D' and as a test I have manually
translated parts of FLTK into
native 'D' code. This is obvioulsy very different from just writing a wrapper,
more involved, but also
more rewarding.

Before I jump into manually porting a few hundred thousand lines of code, I
would really like to know
first if the 'D' community is interested in such a thing at all and if I can get
sufficient support and a
reasonable number of users.

What do you folks think?

Matthias


FLTK is a Fast and Light user interface Tool Kit. It sets directly onto the low
lever interfaces of the three
main supported platforms (MSWindows:WIN32, Unix including Linux: X11, Mac OS X:
Carbon/Quartz).
FLTK is in use by several thousand people all over the world. It comes with a
visual user interface
designer that spews out readable C++ (and after the coversion 'D').

Come check it out at http://www.fltk.org/

matthiasm wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I am one of the co-authors of FLTK. I like 'D' and as a test I have manually
> translated parts of FLTK into native 'D' code. This is obvioulsy very different from just writing a wrapper,
> more involved, but also more rewarding.
> 
> Before I jump into manually porting a few hundred thousand lines of code, I
> would really like to know first if the 'D' community is interested in such a thing at all and if I can get
> sufficient support and a reasonable number of users. 
> 
> What do you folks think?
> 
> Matthias
> 
> 
> FLTK is a Fast and Light user interface Tool Kit. It sets directly onto the low
> lever interfaces of the three main supported platforms (MSWindows:WIN32, Unix including Linux: X11, Mac OS X:
> Carbon/Quartz). FLTK is in use by several thousand people all over the world. It comes with a
> visual user interface designer that spews out readable C++ (and after the coversion 'D').
> 
> Come check it out at http://www.fltk.org/
> 
> 


I personally think that would be great. I eval'd FLTK a while back for a potential project and was impressed. It is what its name implies :)

IIRC, one of the things I didn't like about it was that event handler callbacks could not be non-static member functions primarily because of an intersection of how FLTK was designed and the lack of portable "delegate" type functionality in C++. Conversely, I didn't like how Qt handles that either (with MOC and related).

With FLTK though I think the problem could be handled well with D delegates.

Ahhh, here it is: http://fltk.org/str.php?L171

IMHO, that would especially make a port worthwhile and (again, from what I recall about FLTK) D and FLTK seem to be made for one another <g> FLTK is a small static lib., fast, light, reasonably good feature set, modular enough to extend with new widgets, etc... Member function callbacks would be a great addition I think.

Be forewarned though that a port of SWT has kind-of been tagged as "semi-offical" but that project seems to be be stagnant right now.

A potential drawback would be if the GPL licensing wouldn't allow for something like a 3rd party RAD tool to distribute FLTK with it, without also distributing the application source (but I don't know, I'm not a lawyer).

In article <e9rd6l$1gvt$1@digitaldaemon.com>, Dave says...
>
>matthiasm wrote:
>> I am one of the co-authors of FLTK. I like 'D' and as a test I have manually
>> translated parts of FLTK into
>> native 'D' code.
>
>I personally think that would be great. I eval'd FLTK a while back for a potential project and was impressed. It is what its name implies :)
>
>IIRC, one of the things I didn't like about it was that event handler callbacks could not be non-static member functions primarily because of an intersection of how FLTK was designed and the lack of portable "delegate" type functionality in C++.

Thanks for the nice mail.

You are right, D fixes exactly that with its delegates.

In article <e9r97s$1dg2$1@digitaldaemon.com>, matthiasm says...

>Before I jump into manually porting a few hundred thousand lines of code, I
>would really like to know
>first if the 'D' community is interested in such a thing at all and if I can get
>sufficient support and a
>reasonable number of users.
>
>What do you folks think?
>
>Matthias
>

I think this is an awesome idea.  D is in desparate need of a standard and portable GUI toolkit.

Mark

Dave wrote:
> 
> A potential drawback would be if the GPL licensing wouldn't allow for something like a 3rd party RAD tool to distribute FLTK with it, without also distributing the application source (but I don't know, I'm not a lawyer).

Anyone have experience / knowledge on this? The FLTK license is here:

http://fltk.org/COPYING.php

Actually, after looking over that my concern above isn't valid (right? anyone, anyone <g>). Reason: The RAD tool would just be writing out code that imported the FLTK modules and then statically link the app. to the FLTK lib. The RAD tool itself would not be using modified FLTK code so the tool source code would not need to be GPL'd (but of course FLTK itself would still be distributed w/ the tool). Cool.

matthiasm wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I am one of the co-authors of FLTK. I like 'D' and as a test I have manually
> translated parts of FLTK into native 'D' code. This is obvioulsy very different from just writing a wrapper,
> more involved, but also more rewarding.
> 
> Before I jump into manually porting a few hundred thousand lines of code, I
> would really like to know first if the 'D' community is interested in such a thing at all and if I can get
> sufficient support and a reasonable number of users. 
> 
> What do you folks think?
> 
> Matthias
> 
> 
> FLTK is a Fast and Light user interface Tool Kit. It sets directly onto the low
> lever interfaces of the three main supported platforms (MSWindows:WIN32, Unix including Linux: X11, Mac OS X:
> Carbon/Quartz). FLTK is in use by several thousand people all over the world. It comes with a
> visual user interface designer that spews out readable C++ (and after the coversion 'D').
> 
> Come check it out at http://www.fltk.org/
> 
> 

I would be interested in seeing a good GUI kit for D, FLTK looks as good as (or better) the others I've seen.

BTW, does FLTK access the native GUI framework, or does it shell around them?

I really think that would be wonderful.

Infact we use FLTK front-end for a software we developed inhouse to
display 'resin' flow in simulations of composite manufacturing ! Currently it is
written in C++

If a D native version of FLTK is available, I would really use it for all front-ends from now on.

I am really interested and would be your first user.

Thanks
Sai



In article <e9r97s$1dg2$1@digitaldaemon.com>, matthiasm says...
>
>Hi,
>
>I am one of the co-authors of FLTK. I like 'D' and as a test I have manually
>translated parts of FLTK into
>native 'D' code. This is obvioulsy very different from just writing a wrapper,
>more involved, but also
>more rewarding.
>
>Before I jump into manually porting a few hundred thousand lines of code, I
>would really like to know
>first if the 'D' community is interested in such a thing at all and if I can get
>sufficient support and a
>reasonable number of users.
>
>What do you folks think?
>
>Matthias
>
>
>FLTK is a Fast and Light user interface Tool Kit. It sets directly onto the low
>lever interfaces of the three
>main supported platforms (MSWindows:WIN32, Unix including Linux: X11, Mac OS X:
>Carbon/Quartz).
>FLTK is in use by several thousand people all over the world. It comes with a
>visual user interface
>designer that spews out readable C++ (and after the coversion 'D').
>
>Come check it out at http://www.fltk.org/
>
>

matthiasm wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I am one of the co-authors of FLTK. I like 'D' and as a test I have manually
> translated parts of FLTK into native 'D' code. This is obvioulsy very different from just writing a wrapper,
> more involved, but also more rewarding.
> 
> Before I jump into manually porting a few hundred thousand lines of code, I
> would really like to know first if the 'D' community is interested in such a thing at all and if I can get
> sufficient support and a reasonable number of users. 
> 
> What do you folks think?

If this were ported it D it would be my GUI of choice.

~ Clay

> 
> Matthias
> 
> 
> FLTK is a Fast and Light user interface Tool Kit. It sets directly onto the low
> lever interfaces of the three main supported platforms (MSWindows:WIN32, Unix including Linux: X11, Mac OS X:
> Carbon/Quartz). FLTK is in use by several thousand people all over the world. It comes with a
> visual user interface designer that spews out readable C++ (and after the coversion 'D').
> 
> Come check it out at http://www.fltk.org/
> 

On Sat, 22 Jul 2006 05:17:16 +1000, matthiasm <matthiasm_member@pathlink.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I am one of the co-authors of FLTK. I like 'D' and as a test I have manually
> translated parts of FLTK into
> native 'D' code. This is obvioulsy very different from just writing a wrapper,
> more involved, but also
> more rewarding.
>
> Before I jump into manually porting a few hundred thousand lines of code, I
> would really like to know
> first if the 'D' community is interested in such a thing at all and if I can get
> sufficient support and a
> reasonable number of users.
>
> What do you folks think?

Yes! THIS WOULD BE USEFUL, he exclaims :-)

There would be any number of good, experienced D people to help with the porting issues that arise.

-- 
Derek Parnell
Melbourne, Australia

matthiasm wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I am one of the co-authors of FLTK. I like 'D' and as a test I have
> manually translated parts of FLTK into
> native 'D' code. This is obvioulsy very different from just writing a
> wrapper, more involved, but also
> more rewarding.
> 
> Before I jump into manually porting a few hundred thousand lines of code,
> I would really like to know
> first if the 'D' community is interested in such a thing at all and if I
> can get sufficient support and a
> reasonable number of users.
> 
> What do you folks think?
> 
> Matthias
> 
> 
> FLTK is a Fast and Light user interface Tool Kit. It sets directly onto
> the low lever interfaces of the three
> main supported platforms (MSWindows:WIN32, Unix including Linux: X11, Mac
> OS X: Carbon/Quartz).
> FLTK is in use by several thousand people all over the world. It comes
> with a visual user interface
> designer that spews out readable C++ (and after the coversion 'D').
> 
> Come check it out at http://www.fltk.org/

Is FLTK capable of integrating with the platform's look and feel? That is, would it look out of place in my Linux Gnome or KDE desktop environment?

Does FLTK have some sort of HTML renderer or advanced text display box?

If the visual interface designer is any good and spat out good D code, then I'd probably use FLTK for D.  I really like the idea of a lightweight UI library to use with D- this pairs well with the way I write D code.

It'd be especially nice to have a UI library which would work with build, so I don't have to worry about external libraries.

Welcome to D.

Are you thinking about forking FLTK, porting it then maintaining/syncing the D version, or just moving FLTK over to D and phasing out the C++ version? (I like the last option, but some of your current users might be annoyed)

-- 
~John Demme
me@teqdruid.com
http://www.teqdruid.com/