Phooey

Phooey is an [arrow]-based functional UI library for [Haskell].

• Read the Haddock docs (with source code, additional examples, and Comment/Talk links)
• Get the code repository: darcs get http://darcs.haskell.org/packages/phooey
• Or grab a distribution tarball.
• See the README.

Introduction

GUIs are usually programmed in an "unnatural" style, in that implementation dependencies are inverted, relative to logical dependencies. This reversal results directly from the imperative orientation of most GUI libraries. While outputs depend on inputs from a user and semantic point of view, the imperative approach imposes an implementation dependence of inputs on outputs.

Phooey ("Phunctional ooser ynterfaces") retains the functional style, in which outputs are expressed in terms of inputs. In addition, Phooey supports dynamic input bounds, flexible layout, and mutually-referential widgets.

As an example, below is a simple shopping list GUI. The total displayed at the bottom of the window always shows the sum of the values of the apples and bananas input sliders. When a user changes the inputs, the output updates accordingly.

Phooey is structured as an arrow, and this example uses arrow notation. The code:

ui1 :: UI () ()
ui1 = title "Shopping List" $
      proc () -> do
	a <- title "apples"  (islider 3) -< (0,10)
	b <- title "bananas" (islider 7) -< (0,10)
	title "total" showDisplay        -< a+b

There are more examples in the Haddock docs.

Portability

Phooey is built on wxHaskell. Quoting from the wxHaskell home page

wxHaskell is therefore built on top of wxWidgets -- a comprehensive C++ library that is portable across all major GUI platforms; including GTK, Windows, X11, and MacOS X.

So I expect that Phooey runs on all of these platforms. That said, I have only tried Phooey on Windows. Please give it a try and leave a message on the Talk page ("Discuss this page").