Re: [Caml-list] Does LablTk have a future?

[David Thomas <david_hd@yahoo.com>]

--- Jon Harrop <jon@ffconsultancy.com> wrote:
> > And because you loose the ability to have native 
> > interface on all paltforms (Gnome, KDE, Windows
2k, 
> > Windows XP, MacOS X, ...).
> 
> Yes but we gain the ability to have a better
> interface on all platforms.

While pleasantly egotistical, I would have to say that
this is a false statement.  Yes, there are problems
with any given windowing system.  Note, however, that
the user has already chosen the system whose
shortcomings they feel the most comfortable with.  

Additionally, they have likely already configured that
system according to their personal preferences, which
means that your application must either know about
each individual system and poll it for each relevent
setting, require the user to re-specify their
preferences with respect to your application, or
ignore the user's preferences altogether.  Since this
is something that virtually every application with a
windowed GUI will likely be using, it should be done
by a GUI library, rather than on an
application-by-application basis.

There's also the principle of least surprise.  While
your system may be better than theirs in the abstract,
the best GUI behaves the way the user expects it to
behave, and that means the same way that the user's
other applications behave - hence, native look and
feel when it doesn't conflict with other goals. 

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