Musings on an Erlang GUI System.

[Chris Pressey]

On Fri, 14 Feb 2003 12:46:21 -0800 (PST)
Eric Merritt <cyberlync@REDACTED> wrote:

>  
> > As a pragmatic individual, I couldn't disagree more
> > - a slick look and
> > feel is a low priority (when compared to robustness,
> > consistency, and
> > portability) unless the intent of this project is to
> > wow propellerheads,
> > middle managers, and other easily-impressionable
> > people.
> 
> 
>  I understand what you are saying and conceptually I
> agree with you. However, in this day and age if you
> want it to be used it has to be pretty. In this day 
> and age, for good or ill, the presentation is as 
> important as the implementation. Of course, this 
> only applies if you want it to be used in standard
> commercial/open settings.

In this day and age, if you want it to be used in standard settings, make
sure it's bundled with the hardware :)

My priorities for a GUI project in Erlang would be:

- make it complete (the problem with existing Erlang GUI libs is that
they're "just about done" - you can't trap a window close in GS last time
I checked, and you can't create a popup menu or examine a multiple
selection in a clist with erlgtk...)
- make it consistent (keeping it simple helps)
- make it portable (erlgtk doesn't work on Windows ME, and GS has had its
own mysterious problems under windows)
- make it robust (make sure the graphics engine port program is robust
first, then write it in Erlang with every dynamic element having it's own
process.  Widgets like checkboxes each may or may not have their own
process; it would depend on whether they have dynamic behaviour or not.)
- make sure the API is reasonably sane
- promote it on its technical merits: convince programmers of the strength
of both it and Erlang by demonstrating why Erlang is an excellent choice
for GUI implementation platform.
- then and ONLY then make it pretty, link it to a powerful UI builder,
etc.

-Chris