GUI evaluation status report

[Stan Shebs <shebs@cygnus.com>]

Thought people might like to know where I was with evaluating GUI
toolkits for Unix/Win32 Xconq.

gtk+:

Hacking on simple example apps worked OK, understood the tutorial,
started on making an imf browser, discovered that reference
documentation is severely lacking, and much of the source code that
you're supposed to read is sans comments. :-( It would take a long
time to get something reasonable running, during which time I couldn't
be doing anything else.

There is a version of freeciv running on Windows using the win32 port
of gtk - I tried it myself, runs OK, but slow and somewhat flaky, worse
than tcl/tk apps on Windows.

I'm also concerned about gtk version churn.

fltk:

I'm on the mailing list, but don't have a sense of usability yet.
Still need to examine Extreme Wave, said to be most complex open
source app using fltk.

java:

Still trying to scope out the effort, in particular whether performance
goals achievable.  Need sources to large (Xconq-sized) example.

tcl/tk:

Not looking so bad after all... :-)

Xt/Xaw:

Still sux.

							Stan