Re: Windows native UIs

[Hans Ronne <hronne@comhem.se>]

>My opinion here: SDL is not a native Windows interface.  It is simply a
>non-TCL interface.  SDL is C and that's crufty, but at least it has
>bindings for various other languages.

Including Python:

http://pygame.seul.org/

>The question is whether UIs are important and elaborate parts of Xconq
>development.  Enough to be worth the trouble of trying to stay uniform
>across platforms.  My primary interest is writing new games and getting
>rid of interfaces that slow down gameplay, whether due to the game
>design, the UI design, or the performance.  Ergo, I don't care about
>maintaining existing UIs.  I do care about being able to rapidly create
>new ones, and/or minimizing the need for UI stuff in the first place.  I
>like games to be as close to a clean, cinematic rectangle as possible.

A clean cinematic rectangle is precisly what the SDL interface is all
about. If you haven't checked it out yet, I suggest you do. It's not
finisned yet, but you can run it under AI control and get a good idea for
how it works.

Whether or not UIs are an important part of Xconq development or not
depends on what you want to achieve in the end. Cross-platform support is
important to the Xconq community. That's the whole point of keeping the
kernel and interface code distinct. And with several platforms, things like
TCL or SDL will save you a lot of work. You only have to write the
interface once, not three times.

That being said, a Windows-native interface that works with the current
kernel would be a welcome addition. As would any improvements to the kernel
that maintains support for the interfaces. But if you want to write
something that runs only one specific game on only on one platform (which
seems to be the gist of your agenda) I don't think you would be able to
contribute much in the end to this project, which is a multi-game
multi-platform one.

Hans