Re: [Vxl-maintainers] wxWidgets and VGUI

[Matt L. <mat...@gm...>]

Miguel,

  Thanks for the feedback.  I agree that vgui quickly becomes too
limited for all but the most basic tasks.  For a while, we've consider
extending vgui to support some additional things, but now I feel that
there is no need.  These other cross-platform toolkits are mature
enough now that they should be used for any more complicated GUI.

  I also seriously considered Qt4 (I was unaware of KWWidgets).
Actually, I think Qt4 is a bit more polished than wxWidgets, but the
big selling point of wxWidgets is the licence.  The wxWidgets license
is most similar to that of VXL.  They are both essentially L-GPL which
allows them to be used commercially without licensing fees.  Qt4 has a
dual license, it can be used freely with GPL-like restrictions or it
can be licensed commercially for a fee.

Matt


On Thu, Aug 7, 2008 at 12:30 PM, Miguel A. Figueroa-Villanueva
<mi...@ie...> wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 7, 2008 at 11:58 AM, Matt Leotta wrote:
>> On Thu, Aug 7, 2008 at 11:38 AM, Amitha Perera wrote:
>>> I think it'll be great to have the embed-vgui-in-wx option fleshed out.
>>>
>>> The widgets you are talking about: they are essentially extensions to wx
>>> that understand vgui specifics, right?  To provide a bridge?  Then I'd vote
>>> for vgui/wx with name vgui_wx.
>>
>> Yes, They would be extensions to wx that understand vgui.  A common
>> theme I envision is a set of wx control panels which are also
>> vgui_observables which send out a vgui_message when the values change.
>>  For example, I want a bank of sliders, each with a configurable max
>> and min value.  When I move a slider I want it to adjust something in
>> a vgui_tableau.  Specifically I'm planing to use this to adjust a
>> shape in a PCA parameter space.  I image this would be useful to other
>> developers.
>>
>> I'm also adding XML Resource Handlers for these new widgets and also
>> the vgui_wx_adaptor.  These plugins allow you to build most of your
>> GUI layout in one of the 3rd party layout programs.  You export the
>> layout as an XML file which is either loaded at run time or converted
>> to C++ at compile time.
>>
>> I'll plan on putting this in vgui/wx if there are no other objections.
>>
>> Matt
>
> Hello Matt,
>
> I think this would be a great addition. You are correct that this was
> my motivation. I think that for quickly inspecting some results vgui
> is good, but as soon as you start doing something more elaborate you
> are quickly constrained. Now on the other hand, using wxWidgets as the
> GUI toolkit (proven, robust, and cross-platform) and being able to
> communicate with vxl (accessing vil images, vidl2 streams, etc)
> through the tableaus is a more reasonable approach for these more
> complex apps.
>
> Actually, I've been tinkering with this lately and was planning to put
> up a better example (image player, with some buttons, soview points,
> etc) . Now, it is an example as opposed to your proposed extensions,
> but I think something like this and maybe a simple tutorial on the
> website can go a long way in convincing people to use this type of
> stuff and that after the hard work is done (that is the toolkit and
> your extensions) it is rather easy to use.
>
> At some point I also considered other libraries like Qt4 and
> KWWidgets, but at the time wxWidgets seemed to be the better solution.
> Now, do people here have thoughts about this? or does it just boil
> down to having the wxWidgets toolkit to start with?
>
> Anyway, I think the additions would be great directly in vgui/wx and
> I'll do my best to test it and help develop in any way my limited time
> allows.
>
> Thanks for the effort,
> --Miguel
>