Micro Window-Gadgets 0.2.0

UWG is a lightweight gadget/windowing toolkit for C and X11. Interfaces are described using XML and are turned into C code using the ubuildinit utility. Currently, only a small percentage of the planned gadgets are implemented.

Micro WG is a C `version of WG. In general, UWG is somewhat more light-weight than WG. Firstly because its written in C and not C++. Secondly because it does not yet provide all the features of WG. Also, it should be significantly easier to `connect UWG to KRoC.

Why UWG ? Its now the case that there are many `widget libraries for programmers to choose from. The traditional X11 widget libraries (X Toolkit Intrinsics), GTK, QT, Motif, wxWindows, TK, etc.. GTK and QT are probably the most common for an average users desktop system -- as the graphics libraries of Gnome and KDE respectively. C++, used by WG, provides a largely type-safe environment for gadget programming -- i.e. the structure/nature of gadgets fit neatly into the C++ type (class) heirarchy.

However, C++ ultimately suffers from the same problems as some other `object-orientated languages -- namely leaky encapsulation. When writing WG, some of the limitations (maybe features) of C++ caused significant problems, particularly in the function-pointer department. Object-orientation is a fine model for data, but it does not work well when `bolted-on to sequential languages -- C++ and Java in particular.

Forcing a sequential flow-of-control through something that we tried to break into objects only leads to problems. E.g. when executing inside the method of one object, is it safe to delete another object ? -- well, only if that other object wasnt involved (and still is involved) in the flow-of-control. And this you cannot easily tell. Furthermore, in many cases, `delete may be substituted for any object interaction (method-call).

Also, a lot of modern GUI toolkits seem unnecessarily bloated. C++ (and other `frilly languages) can be blamed for some of this, but not all of it. WG isnt bloated yet, but its not far off. UWG is therefore an attempt at a lightweight (size and speed) gadget toolkit for X11, programmed in C.