[clean-list] Designing GUI's?

[Peter Achten]

At 11:17 14-11-00 +0100, Eddy van Esch wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>What is a comfortable way of designing GUI interfaces in Clean?
>Do you have to do it by typing in coordinates and sizes of controls?
>An easy way would be if you could do it Visual Basic style, you know,
>drawing the controls on the screen...
>How do you guys design your GUI's?
>
>Kind regards
>Eddy

In Clean we use the Object I/O library to create GUI applications. It is a 
rather big library. You can download it at:

ftp://ftp.cs.kun.nl/pub/Clean/supported/ObjectIO.1.2/windows/ObjectIO%201.2.1.zip

This is the latest release version for the MS Windows platform. A 
comprehensive tutorial (also rather big) can be downloaded at:

ftp://ftp.cs.kun.nl/pub/Clean/supported/ObjectIO.1.2/doc/tutorial.pdf
or
ftp://ftp.cs.kun.nl/pub/Clean/supported/ObjectIO.1.2/doc/tutorial.ps.gz

The CleanIDE has been created with this library. You can generate windows, 
dialogues, menus, timers and receivers. The library also supports TCP/IP 
and printing.

To create controls in a dialogue you do not have to type in coordinates and 
sizes (but if you want to you can do it). Instead, the library provides you 
with a powerful layout language that is designed to give correct results 
independent of actual dimensions of the elements. This is crucial when 
developing platform look-independent applications.

One of my home-made projects is to write a visual builder application built 
on top of the Object I/O library to allow you to create dialogues, windows, 
and menus using a drop and drag interface. Some time ago Ana Maria Abrao 
has been working on a similar project. I do not know what the current state 
is of that project, but you can contact her at:

ana@ufu.br

Regards,
Peter Achten