GUI simulation

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

GUI emulation is a software technique used to mimic the appearance of a user interface . The emulating program does not use the operating system's own routines to generate a graphical surface, but rather its own drawing algorithms.

GUI emulation is mainly used when a program has been written for several systems or when platform independence is to be made possible by the program not using the GUI subsystems of an operating system to display the user interface, but its own library, which is either included in the program is integrated, installed with it or has to be procured separately ( runtime environment ).

One such library that uses GUI emulation is Qt , for example .

Advantages and disadvantages of the GUI emulation

advantages

  • The GUI emulation can guarantee platform independence.
  • GUI elements can be displayed that may not exist in this form in the subsystem of the operating system.

disadvantage

  • An additional library is required, which may have to be obtained separately.
  • The more operating systems this library supports, the more extensive its drawing routines and the larger the library.
  • Additional computing time is required because the drawing routines draw the elements themselves before the operating system displays the surface. With an operating system such as Microsoft Windows , which used processor-based GDI up to version “XP”, the processor load for the graphic display increases because of the additional drawing routines. From Windows version “Vista”, the graphic calculation and display of the operating system is left to the graphics card.