[haiku-development] Re: R1/a4 initial planning
- From: Gabriel Harrison <nyteshade@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2012 14:59:23 -0800
>
> So, nobody interested in this? (replying to myself here...)
> I think it's a very interesting approach.
> With fGUI (and its inspirational source, MUI from the Amiga), it is
> possible to extend the interface API in the same way you can extend the
> kernel with new drivers, or how you can extend the TranslationKit with
> new translators. Simply drop a UI component into a folder, and
> applications can use it.
>
I am very interested in it. Both from having used and still use Amigas to
this day I can vouch for the extendability of this approach. MUI was
developed as 3rd party GUI library for the Amiga and was later heavily
adopted by the OS itself (OS4.x) and MorphOS and likely other variants such
as p.OS (I think they also used it).
> But it gets more interesting than that: you can also replace existing
> widget classes. Imagine simply dropping a textview-class object file
> into a folder somewhere in /boot/home/config, and immediately this
> textview replaces the default textview in all applications. Without
> anything else, no recompiling, no editing... just a restart of the
> applications. And all the new textview has to do is implement the
> textview interface defined by Haiku. Why would you want to do that?
> Maybe because it's a better textview which has spellcheck and syntax
> highlighting built-in. Just like that, all applications in your system
> using textviews gain spellcheck and syntax highlighting. Just like
> adding a translator for a graphics format gives you the ability to use
> it instantly everywhere.
> Imagine replacing the BSlider class with one that can listen to MIDI
> controlchange events. Immediately, every slider in any application in
> your system can be controlled via MIDI. Or, if we get a HTMLView in the
> future, you could just replace the default webkit-based one with
> another one based on Gecko or NetSurf, and just like that, it's
> everywhere.
>
You're focusing on being able to replace this on the OS level but remember
it's just as easily targeted toward the application specific level. So
replacing an OS component for an application alone is just as easily doable.
I would relish the ability to both work on and help integrate this into
Haiku. I also fully support this as opposed to a direct replacement of the
Interface Kit with Qt. Now I am still supportive of having a build of Qt
for Haiku just not as much for an integral part of the OS itself...
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