Best GUI lib?

Questions about the LÖVE API, installing LÖVE and other support related questions go here.
Forum rules
Before you make a thread asking for help, read this.
User avatar
bartbes
Sex machine
Posts: 4946
Joined: Fri Aug 29, 2008 10:35 am
Location: The Netherlands
Contact:

Best GUI lib?

Post by bartbes »

There are 6 GUI libs on the wiki, but none of them look finished, all the libs I can find are just startups. Can you (=the lib creators) work together and finish something? I like where LoveUI is going, but the thing I need the most is a dialog, which I couldn't find (might be in there, might have looked over it). And something I'm almost sure of none of the libraries have: a list. I don't feel like creating my own lib, so.. one last time:
Work together and finish something

I hope we (=the community) are going to have a nice GUI lib.

Now that's finished, my question: Which GUI lib is best suited for the job (i.e. closest to being finished, having a lot of controls and easy way of adding new ones)?
User avatar
appleide
Party member
Posts: 323
Joined: Fri Jun 27, 2008 2:50 pm

Re: Best GUI lib?

Post by appleide »

I'm still working on mine (as of this morning), I am porting all old classes to the new class system that you've written. (I need to because in my old class system the functions weren't static and I was starting get problems. I cannot elaborate further because I forgot what problems.) It had to do with the ScrollView, though (was going to be the beginnings of a list).
User avatar
TsT
Party member
Posts: 161
Joined: Thu Sep 25, 2008 7:04 pm
Location: France
Contact:

Re: Best GUI lib?

Post by TsT »

I'm also working on my own GUI lib(s) ... I already done lot of things (not released)
but I'm recently start to completly recode them.

I will try to publish some libs, for example :
- tree lib
(use to manage item (parent) in sub-items (child), ... with a global index with getbyid() support)
- advanced input lib
(to provide a new input interface, able to manage multiple mouse, advanced shortcut like sequence detection, use the mouse with keyboad, etc.)
- focus lib
(use to manage multiple focused items)
- loadsave lib
(to save boolean, string, table and be able to restore them at the next start, with multiple encoding (ascii,quoteprintable-like,base64) support) (another projet already do this, I don't remeber his name)
- draw layer lib
make love able to draw with a z-index
- and more...

Best Regards,
My projects current projects : dragoon-framework (includes lua-newmodule, lua-provide, lovemodular, , classcommons2, and more ...)
User avatar
Star Crunch
Prole
Posts: 33
Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 12:13 am
Location: Monterrey, MX
Contact:

Re: Best GUI lib?

Post by Star Crunch »

bartbes wrote:And something I'm almost sure of none of the libraries have: a list.
Like this?

Image

I've got one in TacoShell, though it's single-selection only. (Also, no scroll bar.) I left it and a few other
widgets out of the demo.

A dialog is a fairly basic application of a couple ideas, though I have yet to distill such ideas into handy docs. :(
Code for it, however, is handy.

Widgets (controls) have mostly been added on an as-needed basis. I omitted a few from the code, where either it
wasn't "official" (i.e. while generally useful, it was an ad hoc or one-shot solution) or wasn't in 2D (e.g. see
the ring about halfway through the trailer here).

(I have a decent idea for a demo that shows most of the GUI to effect, and in a practical way, free time has been
less than forthcoming lately.)

The library is rather mature, though as noted above and elsewhere it lacks documentation. Its users thus far have
only been myself and three other programmers with whom I share a small office, so that had never been very urgent. But
then, for the first few years the others didn't use Lua much, and now all of a sudden EVERYBODY is, A LOT :shock:
So it's in our own best interests too. :)

I've LuaDoc'd about half the API--of which the GUI is actually only a small, albeit easily demonstrable,
part. A bunch of examples / overviews are in order, too.

(I could walk you through some steps by chat, but the Netherlands is 7 time zones ahead of Monterrey, so...)
User avatar
Xcmd
Party member
Posts: 211
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2009 10:45 pm

Re: Best GUI lib?

Post by Xcmd »

Actually I rather like that there are multiple options for GUIs. Because if one doesn't do something I like then I'm sure another one will. I applaud our current GUI developers. Better you than me.
We don't borrow, we don't read, we don't rent, we don't lease, we take the minds!
User avatar
bartbes
Sex machine
Posts: 4946
Joined: Fri Aug 29, 2008 10:35 am
Location: The Netherlands
Contact:

Re: Best GUI lib?

Post by bartbes »

Yes, but I see this skill and realize (again) it'd be better if everyone worked together, there is certainly no lack of skill and this would increase in the development speed, performance and stability of the lib they are working on.
User avatar
Robin
The Omniscient
Posts: 6506
Joined: Fri Feb 20, 2009 4:29 pm
Location: The Netherlands
Contact:

Re: Best GUI lib?

Post by Robin »

This keeps coming up in the Open Source world: "Why don't project X and project Y just merge? Then they can work together."

But, just like Xcmd said, it's better if there are multiple projects, each with a different take on the whole GUI thing. That doesn't mean they can't learn from each other's code, though.
Help us help you: attach a .love.
User avatar
bartbes
Sex machine
Posts: 4946
Joined: Fri Aug 29, 2008 10:35 am
Location: The Netherlands
Contact:

Re: Best GUI lib?

Post by bartbes »

True, but I guess there should be bigger dev teams, the way it currently is a lot of GUI libs are left without full functionality, never to be looked at again.
User avatar
Garotas*Gostosas
Prole
Posts: 41
Joined: Fri Apr 03, 2009 12:15 am

Re: Best GUI lib?

Post by Garotas*Gostosas »

what about a copromise? you do a mashup like for example "Taco Shell vs Tainted GUI". (only) once. with everything in it so far for the users who want or need to concentrate on other things.
from there on every team takes the code and develops on their own again as it fits them best - they can even rewrite everything from scratch and stuff.
this way every one gets what they need without too much organisation and the creativity doesn't get limited. but on the other side all the work of implementing the features of the other codes hasn't to be done by just one team or individual ...
I LOVE GAME, YEAH!
User avatar
Robin
The Omniscient
Posts: 6506
Joined: Fri Feb 20, 2009 4:29 pm
Location: The Netherlands
Contact:

Re: Best GUI lib?

Post by Robin »

Help us help you: attach a .love.
Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 16 guests