Fwd: Fw: suggestions sought for a framework for a quick, dirty, really simple GUI prototype

[Shlomi Fish]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Shlomi Fish <shlomif at shlomifish.org>
Date: Wed, Jul 18, 2012 at 3:58 PM
Subject: Fw: suggestions sought for a framework for a quick, dirty,
really simple GUI prototype
To: shlomif at gmail.com




Begin forwarded message:

Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2012 13:04:16 +0300
From: Shlomi Fish <shlomif at shlomifish.org>
To: Oleg Goldshmidt <pub at goldshmidt.org>
Cc: Linux-IL <linux-il at cs.huji.ac.il>, Omer Zak <w1 at zak.co.il>
Subject: Re: suggestions sought for a framework for a quick, dirty, really
simple GUI prototype


Hi Oleg,

On Wed, 18 Jul 2012 11:50:26 +0300
Oleg Goldshmidt <pub at goldshmidt.org> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I have no - literally zero - experience in creating GUIs of any kind. I
> face the following task now: there is a C++ program that runs on Linux and
> basically receives some packets with some data over the network and does
> some transformations on the data. As a result some data structures are
> created and updated - potentially many times a second, say, a few times a
> second for any *single piece* of data. I need a *prototype* GUI that would
> display and constantly update (parts of) those structures, say strings and
> numbers with colours and labels and stuff. There may be a need for a
> drop-down menu for some configuration - don't know yet. Eventually maybe a
> button or two will be added to invoke some actions.
>
> I figure that the simplest way about it would be to make the GUI run on the
> same Linux machine and write it in C++ for ease of integration. What would
> be the easiest / simplest framework to use? Is it Qt? Ultimate++ (
> http://www.ultimatepp.org/ - just one of the things I found in a simple and
> brief search)? Since I have no experience it's difficult for me to judge
> quickly.

This is the first time I recall hearing about Ultimate++ (maybe I have heard
about it before and forgot all about it).

In any case, I have concentrated most of the usual suspects here:

http://www.shlomifish.org/open-source/portability-libs/#gui

(I see now that Gtk+/gtkmm/etc. and FLTK are absent from that list - I will add
them.).

I happen to think that Qt is very nice (and it is now LGPLed), but I don't have
a lot of experience doing extensive GUI development with it. You might try
asking Omer Zak about it (he is CCed to this message), because he dealt with
it more extensively in the past.

>
> What is important here is speed and painless ramp-up to some fairly low
> level. I want to be up and running as fast as possible with as little
> coding as possible. No need for bells and whistles. No need for long term
> maintenance. It is for a throw away demo/prototype - and yes, I am sure it
> (the GUI part) will be thrown away.
>
> Any suggestions / experiences / war stories / whatever?
>

I should note that I prefer writing GUIs in higher-level, dynamic languages
such as Perl, Python or Ruby, but in your case it may be too much hassle.
Anyway, I think you can go with Qt.

Regards,

        Shlomi Fish

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Electrical Engineering studies. In the Technion. Been there. Done
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