Haskell GUI
Friday, December 7th, 2007 at 6:56 pm, fp
In the last few days I’ve been checking out some haskell GUI frameworks. This is what I found so far.
Gtk2Hs
As the name says, Gtk2Hs is a library which bases on the Gtk+ project. It supports native look’n'feel and is supported on Linux, MacOS and Windows. You can even use the glade interface builder on Linux for creating your Haskell guis.
The user interface code is implemented in one big Monad (how else?) and a hello world application looks like
import Graphics.UI.Gtk main :: IO () main = do initGUI window <- windowNew button <- buttonNew set window [ containerChild := button ] set button [ buttonLabel := "Hello World" ] onClicked button (putStrLn "Hello World") onDestroy window mainQuit widgetShowAll window mainGUI
wxHaskell
wxHaskell is a Haskell like wrapper built on top of the C++ wxWidgets framework. It runs on all major platforms as well and supports native look’n'feel. The MacOS port is available as a darcs repository.
The example.
module Main where import Graphics.UI.WX main :: IO () main = do f <- frame [text := "Hello World"] quit <- button f [text := "Quit", on command := close f] set f [layout := widget quit]
HOC
On http://hoc.sourceforge.net/ there are Objective-C bindings so it is possible to access MacOS’ Cocoa library from Haskell and build Cocoa objects from Haskell.
[Update]
Eric pointed out some mistakes.
December 8th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
very nice! tried gt2khs, easy to install, easy to execute, “easy” to code! I like the gt2khs-code more than the wxhaskell one: it’s easier to understand, but you have more to write :) it’s just a matter of taste!
December 13th, 2007 at 12:12 am
Yep. I choosed gtk2hs in the end. I prefer it over the others like you do.
Btw, there are also, I would call them experimental, frameworks like Fruit or Fudgets
March 6th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Hi Steve,
The wxhaskell darcs repository has had Unicode support for quite a while now. Also, we have worked out some installation issues which should make installation on MacOS X easier.
darcs get http://darcs.haskell.org/wxhaskell
Finally, we are in the process of preparing a new release candidate. Is there any chance you would be interested in testing it out? Anyway, I’m happy that you’re happy with your choice! :-)
March 6th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Hi Eric
Thanks for the information. I will move away from OS X soon and I do not have much time these days. Anyway, of course I can test it a bit. Give me an interrupt when the RC is ready.
Have a nice day
March 8th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Hi again, Steve,
Mac and Windows binaries are now available for 0.10.3rc1. Linux ones should be following shortly (by the end of this weekend, we hope)
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=73133&package_id=73173&release_id=582361
February 4th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Install wxHaskell in OSX is a snap but I can’t install gtk2hs in OSX with ghs 6.10, if you like haskell maybe you like this toy: http://www.plt-scheme.org.