Davis Pyon

Has anyone had success developing an external with its own window using a cross-platform (WinXP/MacOSX) GUI toolkit?

I've tried several toolkits including Juce, wxWidgets, FLTK, and FOX, but I couldn't get them to work on MacOSX. Some don't work properly when run in a separate thread (e.g. input from keyboard/mouse unavailable). Other's crash intermittently, I think because they use the same non-thread-safe drawing functions that MaxMSP uses. Since most toolkits use a never ending loop to poll/listen/dispatch, running these loops in a separate thread is necessary.

I know this is a shot in the dark, but if you've had success with a GUI toolkit, please let me know. I promise I won't badger you with questions :)

P.S. I've already considered spawning a separate process and using IPC, OSC, or TCP/IP to communicate with the external.

I've tried several toolkits including Juce, wxWidgets, FLTK, and FOX, but I couldn't get them to work on MacOSX.  Some don't work properly when run in a separate thread (e.g. input from keyboard/mouse unavailable).  Other's crash intermittently, I think because they use the same non-thread-safe drawing functions that MaxMSP uses.  Since most toolkits use a never ending loop to poll/listen/dispatch, running these loops in a separate thread is necessary.

I know this is a shot in the dark, but if you've had success with a GUI toolkit, please let me know.  I promise I won't badger you with questions :)

P.S. I've already considered spawning a separate process and using IPC, OSC, or TCP/IP to communicate with the external.


gui-toolkits-for-external-with-own-window

Quote: Zola wrote on Sat, 06 October 2007 12:34

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my guess is that no one has successfully done so. the ui system in max is odd, to say the least. luckily, it looks like max 5 does a lot to improve that, and may even go so far as to provide a basic cross-platform ui library itself.

Quote: Zola wrote on Sat, 06 October 2007 12:34
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> Why did this go unanswered...
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my guess is that no one has successfully done so. the ui system in max is odd, to say the least. luckily, it looks like max 5 does a lot to improve that, and may even go so far as to provide a basic cross-platform ui library itself.


GUI Toolkits for external with own window