looking for recommendation for lightweight GUI lib

[Cliff Brake]

On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 4:18 AM, Peter Haijen <openembedded at haijen.be> wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> I am working on an openembedded based image for use in a small-footprint
> device with an lcd.
> I need to implement a very simple GUI on this.
> Full support for an X server seems overkill, I think something more
> lightweight would be appropriate, because memory is very limited and this
> will be a one-application kind of device anyway.
> Framebuffer support is available, I think (Tux smiles at me and kernel boot
> messages are displayed).

X is smaller than you might think -- the Kdrive version of X
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDrive) is fairly small (about 940KB),
but probable requires another MB or so in libs.

I typically use GTK+, but once you add Glib, GTK, GDK, etc, you are
talking another 5MB or so in libraries, but even that is fairly small
considering what they give you.

DirectFB and its LiTE toolbox engine might be enough.  I've never used
it it -- just heard of others using it.  It is no doubt smaller than
GTK+X.

Qt embedded includes support to run directly on a framebuffer (no X).

You can also just implement your own toolkit directly on top of the
framebuffer as is done in psplash (http://labs.o-hand.com/psplash/).

I'm sure there are other options ...

> Which would be the fastest path towards having an open library available on
> my device which I could use to implement a simple "hello world"-style GUI
> program on this setup?
> Is there a recommended image.bb file available which would build the
> required software (and not too much more) which I can use?

Create your own custom image using the angstrom distro and the
minimal-image image recipe and add the components you need.  See
http://bec-systems.com/web/content/view/79/9/ for ideas on how to
create your own custom image.

Cliff

-- 
=======================
Cliff Brake
http://bec-systems.com