[fetter-devel] Qt bindings

[C Y]

--- Ivan Shvedunov <ivan4th at gmail.com> wrote:

> Well, as a former big Qt fan I just couldn't help myself...
> 
> Concerning Qt bindings:
> Qt headers aren't really using any non-standard C++. MOC directives
> disappear if
> you pass the file in question via preprocessor (they are #defined as
> blank or something
> like "signals" -> "protected"), so no special handling is required.
> What MOC really does
> is scanning header files for such directives and then generating
> additional C++ source
> containing "metaobjects", which contain slot descriptions etc. The
> data from metaobjects
> can be accessed and used by Lisp binding to connect signals to slots
> and other related
> tasks.

Hmm :-).

> Some additional ideas I had concerning Qt <-> Lisp interaction:
> 
> 1. It's possible to generate XML-based .ui files easily from Lisp by
> means of any
> XML generator and then make Qt load them or convert them into C++
> sources via
> uic. This can be used to build GUI declaratively in Lisp.

Could lisp then interface with the GUI though?  (send it data,
commands, etc?)

> 2. It's relatively easy to build a library which can interact with Qt
> code by means of
> calling members declared as slots, and probably do so via some simple
> RPC protocol -
> this can be useful for (somewhat strange) cases where GUI code is
> written in C++
> and application core is written in Lisp.

Eeek.

> That said, I think a good stable native open source cross-platform
> Lisp GUI libary would be much better than Qt bindings ;-)

That would be McCLIM once it's done.  But to make it look and act
"native" on various desktops, we want to interface with higher level
graphics widgets rather than just taking low level primatives and doing
everything ourselves. (which is what the clx backend currently does, as
far as I can tell.)  If we then write a QT backend (which requires QT
lisp bindings) we can write our interface in McCLIM (lisp) and then run
it on all the platforms QT+Lisp runs on.  <evil grin>.

Cheers,
CY


		
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