Introduction and toolkit abstraction

[Lars Hallberg]

Sean Middleditch wrote:

>My OpenOffice.org installation already *looks* identical to the rest of
>my GNOME desktop.  It even uses many native GNOME dialogs, and will be
>using more soon.  But it still feels completely alien and acts just like
>a Windows app.  Why?  The design is based on MS Office, which in turn is
>a style of widget selection, layout, menu organization, prefernce
>handling, and so on which is completely wrong for the GNOME desktop.
>They don't even need to use GTK+ to fix OpenOffice.org from a user
>perspective.  They do need to gut and redesign the entire UI and
>behaviour, however.
>
>You *cannot* get real integration by using some library.  You *must*
>alter the design of an app for each desktop to make it integrate
>appropriately.  You'll need, at the bare minimum, different UI
>specification files (assuming Glade or a similar technology is used) for
>each desktop.
>
I don't have the answer, but I think XUL + environment specifik skin for 
each target would take this a good way. Not as long as completly recode 
the ui, but a good bit with fare less effort. Exactly howe longe would 
be nice to find out. If that is not enuff, envirionment specifik XUL 
might be posably without changing the underlying app. If ther is suport 
for scripts (i think that should be up to the app) in the XUL a lot can 
be done withot making the binary different for different enverionment!

Then a toolkit abstraction layer needs alot of other 'standard' api:s 
for caling up (and possably extend) standard dialog boxes etc. Ther will 
be some envirent specifik code in every backend, but thats chared 
between apps.

/LaH