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Need tips of GUI lib for linux on omapl138 (using linux framebuffer)

Henrik Abrahamsson
Intellectual 300 points
Other Parts Discussed in Thread: OMAPL138

Hi,

I have an omapl138 based custom board with linux. I want to make a simple GUI application with a couple of drop-down scroll lists, edit boxes and pop-up alert windows. I have searched the web for graphic libraries to use but it is a jungle out there. Can anyone recommend a graphic library with a small memory footprint, that uses linux framebuffer and that has the widgets I mentioned above?

Qt embedded looked really nice but the memory footprint was too large for my application. I also took a look at SDL but I couldn't see that it has any ready widgets to use and I really don't want to code things like drop-down lists myself. I also read somewhere that SDL doesn't support multiple windows so pop-up alert windows can not be done with SDL?

I don't have much experience with graphics in Linux before so any tips or suggestions is much appreciated.

// Henrik Abrahamsson

  • 0
    TI__Expert 6580 points

    What is the memory footprint target you are looking at ?

  • 0 in reply to Prabindh Sundareson
    Intellectual 300 points

    Prabindh Sundareson said:

    What is the memory footprint target you are looking at ?

    I want to have a memory footprint of < 1MB for just the graphic lib uncompressed.

  • 0
    TI__Mastermind 44306 points

    Henrik,

    I am a bit biased as I have done a lot of work with Qt... but you shouldn't neglect Qt from the beginning. I agree that by default it is huge but it can be stripped down very easily. First of all all major components are split in sub-libs. So for basic GUI apps the core and gui libs should be enough. But even these can be stripped down further if you use the config tool that allows to disable any stuff that is not needed (eg printing dialogs...).

    I will put it on our todo list to create some examples for a minimum Qt install but I can't promise it will be done soon...

    Regards.

  • 0 in reply to Frank Walzer
    Intellectual 300 points

    Frank,

    Thank you for your suggestion. I actually tried to make my own qconfig-file and rebuild the Qt library but I got some build errors. I am using buildroot to compile the Qt library for my target. A strange thing was that in buildroot menuconfig, the Qt Network lib option was automatically enabled as soon as i enabled Qt Gui lib. Any idea why buildroot thinks that I must have the network lib? The build errors that I got looked like they had something to do with Qt network lib.

    Unfortunately I don't have time to work with this right now but I will have to take a look at this again in a couple of months. Will probably have more questions then. Thank you for your help.

     

    // Henrik

  • 0 in reply to Henrik Abrahamsson
    TI__Mastermind 44306 points

    Henrik,

    I did not use Qt builds with buildroot so far. Either I do a standalone build of Qt (then I have full control) or I use what we have in Arago file systems which are based on OpenEmbedded/Arago build systems. I assume each one has pros and cons...

    Usually there should be no dependency of QtGUI (lib) to QtNetwork but I am not 100% sure. Maybe there is a certain widget (IP input?) that would cause that. Or build root installs any Qt application that needs the network functionality. I suggest you need to deep dive into the buildroot config then. Unfortunately I can't help with that at all. It is probably better to post this question on any Qt forum than here at TI - at the end we are mostly HW...

    Regards,

      Frank