Create Interface Design for Program

[JamesU]

(this doesn't really apply to me, I'm just curious)

How would someone create an interface design with their program instead of compiling it and opening it in command prompt?

 

[dduardo]

You need to use a gui toolkit library. Something like this would be used:

http://www.gtk.org/

 

[JamesU]

one more question-

are you going to update that C++ tutorial?!

 

[dduardo]

It's been some time hasn't it? Ok, i'll update this week.

 

[neurocomp2003]

dduardo is that only a linux GUI pkg?

 

[dduardo]

GTK is multiplatform (Linux, Windows, OSX). QT, FLTK, TK are also multiplatform gui toolkits. There are a lot of gui toolkits. You just have to find the one that has the features you need.

 

[faust9]

There's also wxWidgets(multiplatform as well) http://www.wxwidgets.org/

 

[neurocomp2003]

coo...dduardo do you know of any free 3Dengines that don't depend on CEGUI as the GUI interface.

 

[Sir_Deenicus]

You could use the .NET framework and use winforms as well. If you code using the newer versions of Visual C++ or C# you can actually design your forms/interface in a WYSIWYG manner.

Borland's C++ Builder allows for this quite easily as well with its CLX/VCL.

 

[Sir_Deenicus]

coo...dduardo do you know of any free 3Dengines that don't depend on CEGUI as the GUI interface.

There are quite a lot, you might want to take a look at the http://www.garagegames.com/mg/projects/tge/ if you are serious about this as it provides the most bang for you buck. Is there any particular reason you don't like Crazy Eddie's GUI system

 

[dduardo]

neurocomp2003, you can use the quake 3 engine, which is written using Opengl:

http://www.idsoftware.com/business/techdownloads/

 

[mattmns]

Just a general question. At what point can, or should, a programmer learn how to use a gui?

 

[dduardo]

Just a general question. At what point can, or should, a programmer learn how to use a gui?

It depends on the language and toolkit, but you should have a good broad understanding of the lanuage before attempting to do any gui programming.

 

[TenaliRaman]

For starters,
its not a bad idea to use QTDesigner and using QT kit to design GUI. The thing is damn easy to use, but don't get addicted to it, we need to keep our options open. But the signal-slot mechanism is neat to get used to. Since this mechanism is something one will encounter with different GUI toolkits in different forms. (For example in Java AWT/Swing, we have listeners).

-- AI

 

[neurocomp2003]

can't use CEGUI because I'm to comfortable with vc6 and don't want to move onto vc.net(i got 2003/2005). However the runtime libraries you must compile for vc6 for CEGUI is a hassle becauses of all the other prerequisites you got to find, make sure its the right version and then compile.

and torque is not free. Is q3 free?

 

[dduardo]

The Quake 3 engine is competely free and open source.

 

[JamesU]

Is there a way to create an interface without those programs?

 

[dduardo]

You could use a GUI markup language like UIML, GladeXML or XUL. You basically describe the structure of the interface using xml, just as you use html to describe the structure of a webpage. This type of stuff has been around since 1998. Microsoft has something similar called XAML, but you won't be able to use it until Longhorn comes out in 2006.

[edit] UIML is an open standard used in java and various other areas, GladeXML is GTK, XUL is Mozilla,

 

[neurocomp2003]

sorry dduardo another Q. Does q3 support the 3dsmax/maya animation files?

 

[dduardo]

Yes you can use 3dsmax/maya, but you need a converter to md3.

http://dl.fileplanet.com/dl/dl.asp?q2pmp/tools/quake3/Pop_n_plugs_b6.zip