GUI for OCaml (was: Re: [Caml-list] Does LablTk have a future?)

[David MENTRE <david.mentre@gmail.com>]

Hello,

2005/8/30, Jon Harrop <jon@ffconsultancy.com>:
>  I had tried lablgtk before but failed to get to grips with it. 

The client of my application is also written in Lablgtk2 and, despite
helpful answers by Jacques Garrigue and Olivier Andrieux as well as
SooHyoung Oh's tutorials, I find programming with Labgtk2 not very
easy (to say the least). I find Lablgtk2 is largely under-documented.
Of course, this is a large task that cannot be achieved by two
individuals.

> I think it would be more constructive to create a decent cross-platform GUI
> library from the ground up for FPLs/OCaml. This wouldn't need to be anything
> fancy, just easy access to the simplest GUI elements to start with. I'd like
> to see GUIs described by purely functional data structures. 

I'd also loved too. Having a cross-platform GUI (with native look and
behaviour on Windows and MacOS X),   programmed using a functional
style, well documented (with reference manual and tutorial) and with
necessary tools (GUI design application) would be very very helpful.

However this is a huge task. To add on your initial question:
  1. do you think a minimal part of the OCaml community could
aggregate to ensure the long term maintainability of the toolkit?

  2. how to have a modern look (with whatever definition you might
find for it) which *is* a discriminant point when choosing a GUI?

  3. how to respond to toolkit's users that need to have more "exotic"
widgets/systems?

Yours,
david