Will there be an EZGUI 6.0 ?
Maybe.
So what have I been doing since the release of EZGUI 5.0 Pro and does EZGUI have a future ?
EZGUI definitely has a future as long as 32 bit Windows app are supported by Windows.
I have tested a few EZGUI apps on Windows 11 and just as expected it works very well. So EZGUI should have a good future for at least as long as Windows 11 exists and Windows 64 bit can still run 32 bit apps.
Why no new version of EZGUI yet ?
One thing is that EZGUI 5.0 is so feature rich there is not a lot missing in it. IMO most EZGUI users have not tapped into the raw power found in the EZGUI engine. But I have !
For the last 2 years I have been working on custom programming applications for clients, using EZGUI 5.0 Pro (and Powerbasic 10). I am finding so many ways to push EZGUI far beyond what most users likely are doing. For one I have really pushed the limit of using Ownerdraw and more and more I am finding ways to solve all sorts of problems.
How about writing an application that can change the user interface into different languages ?
(See the picture attached to this post.)
Using Ownerdraw and a few extra WIN32 API calls I have been able to create an app which can switch between multiple languages. I used PB Forms and wrote a simple "Language" editor to define templates for different languages and then in the actual app I used ownerdraw controls and could switch between languages dynamically. Now of couse EZGUI does not support Unicode yet, but for non-Unicode languages you could use existing EZGUI controls. The app I wrote only needed other languages for buttons and labels, so I could support unicode using the WIN32 API and ownerdraw.
Ownerdraw is extremely powerful and probably under used in Windows apps. The point is that by tapping into the more low level engines in EZGUI you can do some amazing things. How about 3D buttons (ownerdraw) with transparent images on them. All sorts of things are possible.
One of the things I need to do here on the forums is to start teaching EZGUI users how to tap into many of these low level engines in EZGUI.
So look for upcoming updates on these forums with ideas of how to push EZGUI 5.0 to the limit.
