Low-overhead GUI toolkit for Linux w/o X11?

[Grant Edwards]

On 2007-11-05, Chris Mellon <arkanes at gmail.com> wrote:

>> Yes, it's "modern" enough to run Linux/X11 -- horsepower-wise
>> it's sort of in the PDA class of devices.  wxWidgets has been
>> tried, but it's pretty sluggish. Hence the search for
>> something a little lighter weight.  Using Python is probably
>> going to be a little bit of a stretch, but using open-source
>> libraries and something like Python for the application
>> langauge seems to be an important part of the business model.
>
> There's a DFB port of wx,

One where wx draws it's own widgets?  I hadn't found that. I'll
have to take a look at that as well.

> although I'm not sure how much attention it's received lately.
> I know it's been actually used for at least one application.
> Gtk can also run directly on a framebuffer - that's what
> openmoko does, for example.

Yup, I just found the GtkFB project yesterday.  That might be
an option as well.  Persumably one could run wxWidgets on top
of that -- I'm not sure if the sluggishness of the wxWidgets
based stuff was due to wx/gtk or X11 (or a combination of
both).

>>> Depending on the higher level GUI functionality you require
>>
>> That's still a bit up in the air.  Routines to render text
>> would be nice, as would sprite graphics.  I don't think text
>> entry or much in the way of windowing is required.
>
> Sounds like a full scale widget toolkit is quite a bit heavier
> than you need, though.

Probably.  The only UI input device is a set a half-dozen hard
buttons next to the display, so a lot of the mouse/keyboard
dependant features in GUI toolkits won't be of any benefit.

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow! HUGH BEAUMONT died
                                  at               in 1982!!
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