[fpc-pascal] GUI confusion

[Henry Vermaak]

On Mon, Sep 30, 2013 at 11:25:34AM +0100, Graeme Geldenhuys wrote:
> On 29/09/13 23:33, Patrick wrote:
> > BTW, Would it be correct to compare LCL to WxWidgets ? In the sense that 
> > it is a meta-widget toolkit?
> 
> Yes, that would be an accurate comparison. LCL and WxWidgets are a
> "common front-end toolkit" to other underlying GUI toolkits. This
> obviously has its pros and cons, because not all GUI toolkits have the
> same functionality. So you "meta-widget toolkit", as you call it, often
> only uses functionality that all GUI toolkits have in common. Also if
> the underlying GUI toolkit has a bug, it is out of your control to fix
> it, so instead you need to find a way to work around it.
> 
> A 100% custom drawn toolkit like fpGUI or MSEgui are probably more work
> to develop initially, but you gain much greater flexibility and
> consistency. All functionality works identical on all platforms, and you
> have full control over everything (like fixing a toolkit bug etc).

With the obvious drawback that it doesn't respond to theme/accessibility
changes.  If a user with impaired vision, for example, changes the GNOME
theme to high contrast with bigger default fonts, the custom drawn
toolkit doesn't know/respond, while an application that uses the GNOME
toolkit automatically adjusts itself.  The LCL, however, didn't respond
to font changes last time I checked.

This functionality can probably be built into the custom drawn toolkit.
Can fpgui pick up theme related changes from other widgetsets?

Henry