[sword-devel] Ideal SWORD Front-end? (cross-platform)

[Nathan Youngman]

Just looking around the Wiki, and saw the entry for making a single  
cross-platform front-end.

	http://www.crosswire.org/wiki/index.php/Frontends:FeatureList

It reminded me of Larosa Johnson's "The Ultimate Bible Software  
Application" blog posts back in March.
	http://blog.trailblazinministries.com/tech-stuff/
Briefly, he discusses a single cross-platform net-connected  
application with YouVersion like features, and later talks about open  
source and Sword. Interesting that he's discussing something better,  
considering he builds modules for WORDsearch, which came out on top  
for Windows Bible software for the layman.
	http://www.fostertribe.org/biblesoftware.html
~
Functionality-wise, I can't see there every being one Bible app "to  
rule them all." Different apps target different audiences.
Having one really good cross-platform app would be good, but he cross- 
platform aspect seems particularly challenging. Cross-platform GUIs  
always require some sacrifice.

Cross-platform toolkits that use native widgets still don't  
necessarily "feel" quite right... at least to aesthetic Mac heads like  
me. Maybe because they tend to use Carbon rather than Cocoa, avoiding  
Objective-C's runtime message dispatching, but missing out on 64-bit  
goodness as Apple moves further towards Cocoa.

Some of the tools that use native widgets:

	WxWdigets (BPBible)
	Lazarus (Pascal with a component library)
	RealBasic (commercial)
	Runtime Revolution (commercial, interpreted)
	SWT (Eclipse)

Some UIs use skins instead, but try to match the look with the OS:

	Java Swing
	Mono 2.0 Windows.Forms 2.0

Others go their own way:

	FLTK
	Adobe Flex

How does one make a single app that really "feels" at home on anything  
from Leopard, Ubuntu, XP, or Vista?
Is it possible?

- nathan

---
Nathan Youngman
Web: http://www.nathany.com





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