[comp.sys.amiga.programmer] Gadtools

Lee_Robert_Willis@cup.portal.com (01/28/91)

For the benefit of those of us still stuck in 1.3, could someone post
a brief description of "What is GadTools"?  Is it simply a collection
of handy-dandy Intuition utilities?  Is it an interactive Interface
Builder program? Other?

Thanks,
Lee		Lee_Robert_Willis@cup.portal.com

es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) (01/28/91)

In article <38555@cup.portal.com> Lee_Robert_Willis@cup.portal.com writes:
>For the benefit of those of us still stuck in 1.3, could someone post
>a brief description of "What is GadTools"?  Is it simply a collection
>of handy-dandy Intuition utilities?  Is it an interactive Interface
>Builder program? Other?
>
	GadTools is a library which allows for easy creation of
gadgets from a collection of 11 standard types. This serves many
purposes:

1) Since it is a shared library, much code is only written once.

2) Much of the tedious, time-consuming code is pre-written so
that the programmer need only deal with what he is writing, not
the user interface.

3) To give a more consistent look to applications. If they all
share the same look to gadgets, they will be easier to learn and
the quality of all the gadgets can be improved as improvements
are made to gadtools automatically, without reprogramming.

4) To make menu creation easier. It comes with a set of routines
to make a menu from a relatively simple data structure. This is
less mentioned than its gadgets features, mainly because they are
so much more difficult, but this is important too because it
allows for a standard layout for menus and makes future
improvements easier.

>Thanks,
>Lee		Lee_Robert_Willis@cup.portal.com

	-- Ethan


Why do the Reagans always fly together?

Because if they flew separately, and one crashed, the other would
have to talk to the children.