skaller wrote :

> IMHO the *key* problem with GUI's -- and why real (TM) developers
> hate using them -- is the lack of automation: unix script
> sucks, but it does provide automation. If we're going to make
> a new GUI it has to have full automation capability.

I totally agree : in software development, GUI programming is one of  
the most boring phases. According to my experience, the main issue is  
GUI to core program communication, you have to :
- programmatically get pointers to hundreds of GUI elements
- programmatically install event callbacks for the same widgets
- programmatically keep GUI element contents in synchronization with  
internal variables

All this stuff is very easy to do, but often long, boring.  
Fortunately, you don't any more need to programmatically define your  
widgets (and their attributes, position), thanks to WYSIWYG GUI  
creation tools (Qtdesigner for Qt, Apple's Interface Builder, Visual  
Studio...).

I think, the good idea is the automation of all this work. I'll give  
the solutions retained by Apple for Interface Builder :
- the global variables/class member containing reference to widgets  
are automatically set-up. You just have to define them in your code  
and tell the GUI creation tool to which widgets each variables is  
bind to.
- the user directly define the callbacks function in the GUI editor  
tool : you just have to give the name of the callback function.
- any class member may be bind to the content of a widget : if the  
user types characters in a text field, the matching class member (a  
variable of type string) is automatically updated to contain the  
newly typed characters. If the programmer modify the value of this  
variable, the text field is automatically updated to the new value of  
the variable. Several widgets may be bond to one variable, several  
variable to one widget, and even a variable/widget may be bond
to a file entry to enable persistent storage of the value (it's used  
for user preference storage). It's also possible to create  
transformers in order to do some type convertion when you use, for  
instance, a text field bond to a integer variable.

I don't know if it is implementable in ocaml as is, or if it is  
really the good solution (it has been designed for the Objective-C  
language, using some of its very particular features). However, I  
think it gives a good idea of what is missing in current GUI APIs and  
GUI creation tools.

Apple explanation of bindings :
http://developer.apple.com/cocoa/cocoabindings.html

-- 
Damien alias Schmurtz
aim:goim?screenname=schmuuurtz