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Every time I got to do anything interesting in an UI, I have had to dive in to read the source code of the library I have to appease. Documentation simply has n
by bostik 4y ago
Every time I got to do anything interesting in an UI, I have had to dive in to read the source code of the library I have to appease. Documentation simply has not been available, explicitly marked as non-existent, or in the more hilarious cases, was outright lying.
Maemo media player? The only way to get results was to commit multiple layer violations and manually chase through at least two chains of d-pointers. (Opaque structs that are explicitly not documented.)
My own poker tracker? Welcome to Xlib internals. Mind reels at the memory alone.
Other phone software? Deep insides of Android source tree, coupled with Qt, and always - ALWAYS its -private headers.
Wayland browser? Dissect the insides of Glib, GTK+, WebKit, Pango and Cairo.
The list goes on and on. As far as I am concerned, UIs are the blighted forest where no sane person ventures alone, and few come out sane.
- john567 4y agoIt can quickly spiral out of control. My best advice is to just hold back. My experience is that most people don't care about a fancy UI they just want something that works for them. If you can build this from common basic components it should turn out ok. I think the trick is discovering what your application needs. What kind of interface it should be and what goes where. The it's mostly the same thing over and over again until it's not. Then this exploratory phase starts all over. I like to draw experience from game engines. They typically build success around a few key components that have well defined constraints. As long as the right constraints are in place it's possible to make a fun experience. If you have the wrong constraints and you find yourself constantly battling the system then stuff is all wrong and you need to find a new approach.