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Need a free cross-platform moddable GUI system

I need to add a moddable GUI system to RakNet so that users using the lobby don’t have to implement the 40 or so client features themselves. The problem is that this is such a huge task when you think about it. I would need a cross-platform graphics system that can work at the same […]

I need to add a moddable GUI system to RakNet so that users using the lobby don’t have to implement the 40 or so client features themselves. The problem is that this is such a huge task when you think about it. I would need a cross-platform graphics system that can work at the same time as the user’s game. Then there needs to be a GUI system on top of that, and not just windows but all the little effects too. Effects usually include sound, so that’s another issue (at least I can use FMOD there). Of course, to interact with the GUI system it also needs an input system, and the input system has to be either stand-alone or work with the end-users own input system.

There’s some free GUI systems out there (wxWidgets among others) but none of them support consoles as far as I know.

There’s Scaleform but I don’t want to learn flash and it’s not free. Still, that’s probably the best compromise I’m going to find. It’s certainly easier than trying to roll my own complete solution.

5 replies on “Need a free cross-platform moddable GUI system”

I don’t know about your customers but anything that does not fit into *my* production pipeline (that is, in-house sound system, in-house input system, Flash-based GUI and in-house renderer, of course) goes straight to garbage can. Unless lobby is going to be a separate application, which I doubt.

Point taken. It’s a tough call. The best is certainly native support, with no user-interaction required. I would hate to force my customers to license Scaleform in order to use the lobby interface I provde. It’s mostly a matter of a week of work to do it in flash, vs. 6 months of work to write a complete system.

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