freedesktop - May 2004 - [fdo] Just an idea on addressing cross platform HIGs

I just read this article
(http://www.wpdfd.com/editorial/wpd0504review.htm) ad noticed some
points about "Mac users VS The Gimp interface" and some "not
conformant
to the Mac HIG specification" things.

Considering this interview
(http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2004/04/28/interview_with_miguel_de_icaza_cofounder_of_gnome_ximian_and_mono.html)
and this article (http://news.com.com/2100-1032-5201325.html) I made some
considerations about interface portability, Microsoft XAML, GTK+, HIG(s) and the
future of interfaces.

If interfaces are going to be written in a declarative way using XML,
maybe could be possble to declare HIG specifications in a similar way. I
mean declare a HIG specification using the XML syntax so that the
widtget toolkit (say GTK+) can follow these rules to render, position
and whatever needed to satisfy the specification for the hosting desktop
system.

Finding a way to do this will make possible to port an interface from
(say) Gnome HIG to Windows HIG (or KDE HIG or Apple HIG). Of course it's
necessary to consider only a subset of rules, not the full HIG specs. 

Looking at the future, alongside the concept of "interface
distribution"
will become even more important the concept of "interface integration"
with the hosting desktop system.

I'm not involved in any activity of freedesktop.org. I'm posting this
email because maybe my thoughts could be useful. I think that
freedesktop.org could gain more importance in a future made of world
applications distribution where heteroenous desktop systems are
involved. The "Free Desktop" is going to be more than just "GNOME
to
KDE" integration...

Gianluca Sartori