Alternative Windows GUI's?
BlitzMax Forums/MaxGUI Module/Alternative Windows GUI's?
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| Are there any alternatives to MaxGUI? I'm really struggling to put together a half-decent looking app, and half the time it's my fault, I'll be the first to admit that.But the other half of the time, it's not my fault, MaxGUI is sorely in need of more gadgets and a lot more little details for the existing gadgets. And yeah, these are not a priority for most people, so I can't really blame BRL for focussing on Max2D and Max3D. I'm a realist, I know that's what the majority would prefer. So I'm wondering if anyone is using anything else. I've looked around and seen various GUI toolkits for use with C++, but most of them would be a real bugger to wrap for Max. I'm currently looking at Ultimate++ which looks more Max-friendly ( nice clean interface, and a MinGW build ) but it's going to be an awful lot of work away from my game if I decide to do it, so I'd really prefer not to if there's an existing alternative with better gadgets. I suppose it's too much to hope that there's a way to use VC# 2005's gadget toolset in Max somehow? I do recall someone saying you could use VC# 2005 DLL's in Max, but perhaps not to this extent? I don't care about the .Net Framework overhead, the game isn't going to use any of this GUI stuff anyway, just all my editing tools. |
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| Gabriel with a little modifcation im sure i could enable winblitz3d to work within bmax, although im unsure what demand there would be for a blitzmax port of winblitz3d. would it realy be worth the effort? and also note that it would be only usable under win32. kev |
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| I've never used WinBlitz3D, Kev, so I'm not sure how much more functional ( if any ) than MaxGUI it might be. Off the top of my head, things that I'm really missing from MaxGUI are things like treeviews not updating when they're changed on the fly ( perhaps fixed soon in Max, still can't compile to try Skid's fix yet ) text fields not respoding to enter, tabbers having icons and text that are only half displayed because they don't resize to match the contents and can't be manually sized, textfields not responding to tab being pressed, gadgets ignoring the commands to change their text or background color, keypresses in text fields being ignored because they are menu shortcuts, and no ability to override those, lack of tooltips on most gadgets, lack of columns in listboxes, lack of gadgets like vertical tabs, vertical toolbars, property grids. I'm not sure how much ( if any ) of this WinBlitz3D would address. |
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| Alternatively, does anyone have any information on reworking MaxGUI to your own liking? I struggle understanding the layout of the code, let alone anything else, but if anyone has information, tutorials, examples on working with MaxGUI, perhaps I could make it my own. Preferably by extending it, so that it does not break on every update, and so that I don't miss out on additional fixes. Anyone created their own custom gadgets with MaxGUI for example? |
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| To use the C# DLL's or Public Assemblies I would think you have to go through the CLR? I've been slowly building my own GUI for full screen games as I need the gadgets. It seems that is the only way at present. Until there is a lot more Max users, I doubt we will see a lot of people invest time in these type of applications. That's just a guess. Any assumption on my part would be stupid :) |
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| Indeed you would have to use the CLR, but I'm sure I read a thread here where someone showed how you could call DLL's which went through the CLR from BlitzMax. I'm tempted to build my own too, but I'm not sure I want to invest that much time in it. The game I'm working on, by itself, is probably going to take 2 or 3 years, so I'm not sure if I want to stick another few months on top of that for GUI development. Maybe I should just live with all the missing features and gadgets, since I'm the only person using it. It just makes life developing the game with my tools that much more enjoyable if my GUI is professional. |
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| If it is just for you, why don't you just use C# for the GUI. You actully plannign a multi-year game? I thought those just occured because everyone is two dam slow and unfocused? What kind of game is it? |
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| Essentially the game and the editor will all be one big project, so I can't write the GUI in C# without also writing the game in C#. It's a complete toolkit in which you can edit almost all aspects of the game, and I may even have a preview option so that the game plays from within the editor. ( Probably not, but it'll be close to possible. ) Either way, the entire game engine will be required to run the editor, so it wouldn't be practical to use a different language. I don't have anything to share about the game yet, because it's just too far off completion and I don't want to do what others have done before and share information and beta's too early and have all interest in the finished game waning by the time I actually get close to finishing it. Everyone I have dicussed it with thinks I'm entirely insane for taking on such a huge project on my own, and they're probably right. Most think it's far too big and destined to fail, and they're probably right too, so we'll just have to see. EDIT: This isn't really about GUI programming, since it doesn't much relate to MaxGUI and it also related to using .Net DLL's in Max, but ok. |
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