Re: gui interface

["Edward A. Falk" <falconer best com>]

> I'm not convinced of the merits of completely integrating a gui to the 
> program, it may look nice, but does it add any functionality ? 

No question, a good GUI is the way to go.

Many many years ago, as a part of a programming contest, I wrote
a GUI-based flight-planning program.  It was quite handy.  You
could bring up a map, see the airports and navaids, and simply
generate a flight plan by going click-click-click on the map.

It had a number of nifty features too.  If you right-clicked
on the map, it would give you the weather report for that
spot.  You could also get information about navaids and airports
by simply clicking on them.

Hmmm.  I just dug up that old code.  Amazing what you can
write in a short time when you're really motivated.  The old
program would also draw weather maps and file your flight plan
for you.  There were property windows you could bring up to
describe your default airplane and pilot info, and so on and
so forth.

Unfortunately, it was partly written in a language that no longer
exists (object-oriented postscript) for a window system that
no longer exists (NeWS), so I can't run it today.

Anyway, I'm rambling.  The point is that this is the kind of
application that practically *begs* to be implemented as a GUI.

I played around with gnome a little bit, and have gotten a
small start at one:

    http://www.best.com/~falconer/xplan.gif

So far, it doesn't do anything yet; I've only just started on
the gui front end.

	-ed falk