[Lazarus] The future of desktop

[Hans-Peter Diettrich]

Dmitry Boyarintsev schrieb:

> LCL is not going to be network based, for one simple reason - it 
> technically cannot - too much is bound to low lever WinAPI-like functions.

I'd say that the problem resides in the adaptation of the (given) VCL 
interface to multiple widgetsets. Some widgetsets fit better into this 
model than others do.

We could try something like Borland tried to achieve with CLX, and 
construct an subset of the LCL functionality that makes less assumptions 
about window/layout managers and built-in functionality of the basic 
controls. Unfortunately it's not sufficient to simply *not use* features 
not available in a certain (HTML...) widgetset, as long as the LCL 
controls use (and consequently rely on) such features internally. One 
solution could try to "outsource" specific features, i.e. move them into 
dedicated classes which can be overridden as suitable for every 
supported widgetset. This would allow to fully disregard properties or 
other programmatical requests internally (in the dumb base classes), 
without causing consequential errors. But it looks impossible to me, to 
separate all problematic functionality from the existing LCL. A complete 
refactoring would be required (too complicated), or a restart from point 
zero (who would be interested in doing that?).

DoDi