IIIMF GUI Open Source Software Foundry

Outline Components for IM UI GUI Library: wxWindows

Extensibility For the IM service providers, it is essential for an IM framework to provide features to differentiate their products from others. Some examples are: –Look and Feel –Functionality –Cooperation with special applications The GUI object downloading mechanism enables "look and feel" customization through the remote Language Engine. Cooperation with special applications depend on the platform IMSPI capability.

Object Downloading IIIMF supports object downloading where either binary or text data objects to perform operations at IIIM client side can be down-loaded from IIIM server. A binary data object types supported in IIIMP V2.0 is an input method GUI object which performs preedit, lookup, status, or auxiliary function, or a light weight engine object which should work as front-end input method on IIIM client side and collaborate well with the associated IIIM server. A text data object supported in IIIMP V2.0 is character conversion rule file, which is written in pre-defined format syntax, called CCDEF. It describes the rules of key-action binding and text composition which should be performed on the client side.

Components for IM UI Pre-edit region ( ) Status region ( ) Lookup choice region ( ) Auxiliary region ( )

Example

wxWidgets (1) A free C++ library for cross-platform development, with bindings for Python, Perl and C#. Since 1992 Features –Supported platform: Windows, GTK+, Plain X11, Motif, MacOS –can write C++, Python, Perl and C# code directly. –supports importing and exporting XML resources.

wxWidgets (2) Projects –wxUniversal: to provide basic classes such as wxWindow, wxFrame and wxDC. –wxMGL: graphic solution for industry –wxMicroWindows Testimony –Highest-profile user is Mitch Kapor and his Open Source Applications Foundation. –Borland C++ Builder X adapts wxWingets.

Problem (1) Weak native resource supports –wxWidgets is a cross-platform toolkit, and has been optimized to make writing dialogs by hand as easy as possible, but this approach has limitations as soon as dialogs reach a certain complexity. Weak language co-development supports –Some users might want to make use of the RAD features of the Python bindings during development, but create a native binary using C++ at the end. This would entail rewriting (or at least reediting considerably) all dialog related code.

Problem (2) Widget items size differ –Typically, a Motif widget has rather large borders, whereas a Windows control tries to use as little space as possible. Additionally, the user is often able to change the font size or choose a different "skin" or "theme" for all dialogs, resulting in different proportions etc. The size of widgets can vary if dialogs get translated into other languages, as a word usually has a different length in different languages.

wxDesigner A commercial dialog editor and RAD tool for the free wxWidgets GUI library. Features –Make use sizers to query the controls about the individual size requirements at run-time, changes in font sizes etc won't do any harm, the dialog will grow or shrink accordingly. –Work for GTK 2.3.x