I haven’t written a dialog editor for the custom GUI. I use the standard GUI for the dialogs and the custom GUI (which is really just buttons) for the application window.

ole’

Sexy Lara
You’re welcome !

I do need to learn wxWidgets, but (from the little I’ve seen and played around with) it’s very similar to MFC … I’ve yet to write any full blow application with it. I don’t consider these small test programs anything serious.

Unfortunately, that’s the nature of “free” nature of OpenSource software. It may meet your needs, it may not meet your needs. There maybe free utilities available, there may not be … I guess you’ve written a dialog editor for your custom GUI stuff. Good for you I think.

I never said Blender and wxWidgets were industry standard pieces of software! I’m using them because I want to and also out of curiosity. I don’t use either at work. I just believe that it’s wise (if possible) to every now and then look at what’s out there.

Well wxWidgets was a waste of my time and I wouldn’t recomend it to anyone.
I realize that it’s free, but my time is not free. I account my waste of time partially to those that that indirectly made me believe that wxWidgets and Blender are great.

You said you need to learn wxWidgets but now you said you used it.. so I assume you have had time to see how it works. To me it was pretty ugly, especially considering that there is no decent free dialog editor for it.

My guess is that you’ve probably not done any in-depth MFC programming else you’d notice the similarities between MFC and wxWidgets. MFC’s not all that great either … Since wxWidgets doesn’t meet your needs, don’t use it … it’s that simple. 8P

As for GUI software, a lot of the time it’s just better to write your own API and interfaces that wrap the platform’s API … or not bother at all and make your GUI use OpenGL or something of that nature. Blender (for example) does this … it’s cross-platform by the way … 8P

If you are writing a simple software, it’s easy to write a simple wrapper for 2-3 platforms. If you are writing a nice looking, platform-consistent software, then the differences are just too big.

Qt is actually a good cross-platform API (and I’ve used this for 4 years!), but (at least the last time I checked) the Open Source version was crippled on Microsoft compilers. Hence looking into wxWidgets.

The idea that you get the portability for free is a tricky thing.

Yeah, portability isn’t free and it’s not easy … but I’ve done this kind of work (professionally) for the last 7 years so it’s not just some recent interest of mine. Write Portable Code is a really good book that talks about some of the basics. There are times where you simply can’t port or make things cross-platform.

While we’re talking about all this, if you have time (and the interest), I recommend trying out C#. I was initially resistant to the idea, but when I tried it, it was actually not bad at all … of course, I’m expecting some kind of protesting response from you! 8P At least for writing tools, it seems like it’s a nice (and faster) alternative to C/C++ +some GUI thing …

By the way, I have done some Mac programming! I think the Carbon API is worse that pure Windows programming (and MFC); it’s too tied into OS 9’s legacy and other odd things. Of course, for Mac programming Apple recommends using Cocoa which is essentially programming using Objective C programming (carried over from the NeXT platform). I do (eventually) plan on buying a Mac … but I’m debating whether it should be a desktop PC or a notebook …

baubau !

Enjoy your vacation then :)