[fpc-pascal] fpGUI powered by OpenGL

[Henry Vermaak]

On 20 December 2010 14:57, Vincent Snijders <vincent.snijders at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2010/12/20  <dhkblaszyk at zeelandnet.nl>:
>>> But why is it not possible to integrate this with the regular fpGUI ?
>>> Can you explain in a couple of sentences ?
>>
>> Can't remember having said that it was impossible with the current approach.
>> In fact it is perfectly doable. However (free)glut and opengl are already
>> available on a large number of platforms/targets. So if fpGUI is built upon
>> these libs then you immediately take the benefit of being able to support
>> these platforms. Additionally you don't have to implement a "complex"
>> interface between the different platforms this is handled already by glut
>> and opengl for you. So in effect it could make fpGUI simpler. And the last
>> plus is having a hardware accelerated gui. It just means it's lightning fast
>> and that's a plus for UI's.
>> Thats not all however, there are minusses. By using glut, you limit yourself
>> to the supported platforms/targets. So if new platforms/targets come along
>> then there is no way (unless you supply patches to the project) to add them.
>> With the current approach you're free to do it yourself. Also the API is
>> plain rigid. This means you'll have to adapt to that and live with it
>> (notice it's a plus and minus depending on how you look at it). (That is why
>> I would like to see a fpGlut some day ;) and believe me it will come to that
>> eventually!)
>>
>> I probably forgot a few plusses and minusses, but that's about it as far as
>> I'm concerned. Also I don't mean to say that using an opengl/glut backend is
>> superior to the current ones. It just has other benefits I suppose.
>
> The above explains why it is useful for an application developer to
> use an openGL backend.
>
> It does not explain the following: Since fpGUI already has two
> backends (afaik, X and winap), why can't openGL a third one? Did you
> change the way fpGUI interfaces with its backend? Is this change so
> incompatible with the current backends, that they cannot be modified?

I'm sure Graeme would be very interested to provide guidance, too.  Is
he still subscribed to this list?

Henry