Celestia Forums

For those who know of the Doctor Who Universe project I am working on...You will be aware that I am using Qt from http://www.trolltech.com I want to break away from this and use something more opensource... I have Lua on the agenda for the scripting of the planets and such but want to know how do I create a GUI without using MFC? I would prefer to generate my own libraries...I would think that all I need is a splash screen generated as I do not need toolbars or a menu bar...I can generate all of this in C++...but it seems that I would still be bound to accessing windows dll's and in turn the code would not be portable...or would it? Is it possible to bypass the windows API all together and generate my own API for window access that would work on Linux and Mac? Or is there a simpler approach with using something someone else has already done?

For his project Mostly Harmless, Marc is working with PUI and freeglut. See the following thread.

I've started with PUI too but I found it too simple. So actually I'm involved in a very ambitious project for the realization of a multiplatform UI based on OpenGL with many features (CELUI).
My project will be suitable for the creation of fast and light User Interfaces oriented to simulation programs. Hopefully one day I will be able to prepare a GLUT version of Celestia using it.

- Paolo

Is Java an option for you?

maxim

Another possibility is wxWidgets (formerly wxWindows), at: http://www.wxwidgets.org.

The entire code needs an overhaul at some point...Very little was taken in consideration to future enhancements which makes it difficult to add in new features...So its possible I could choose to write it in another language...But since OpenGL is based mostly around the C++ platform...I would prefer to stick with that...

Thanks everyone for the links...

Hi Rassilon,

OpenGL is simply a Graphics Library. As far as I know, it contains no User Interface "widgets" or controls of any kind. So, you still need to add a UI library of some sort -- which is why Celestia has separate UI code for each of the platforms it runs on.