Building a GUI

[nsuess]

Hey,

This is my first post here and I'm very new to programming, but a quick learner. I picked up my first Raspberry pi a couple of weeks ago and did a basic temperature controller project to get my foot in the door with this stuff. My next project is sort of a combination between a carputer and a gauge cluster for a car, and I've ordered a 7" touch screen to navigate it with. There are plenty of resources out there for the hardware installation, but I'm having trouble figuring out where to start with the programming side of things.

I realize this is a huge project for someone with basic programming skills, but I want to build my own GUI for the device. I was thinking that it might be easiest to adapt something from XBMC so that I could switch between GPS, Music, and the car's readouts, but I'm not sure how flexible XBMC is. I have an idea of how I want the navigation and displays to be and I'm willing to totally start from scratch if necessary.

My question is whether I should start with XBMC and adapt it into a user interface or if I should try and build it from the ground up, and if I should start from scratch what program should I be learning in order to get to the point where I can start the framework for this project?

Thanks in advance!

[Navyscourge]

I am not sure that I understand what you mean by your GUI interface. It seems that you want existing applications (GPS, music) and your own parts (the car readouts). The car readouts can be shown on a GUI application, but you need to write that yourself, probably in Python.

Applications can have a GUI interface, but are shown on a windowing system that controls a desktop, which in turn controls the open, close and display of a GUI application. The current desktop supplied with Raspbian is the LXDE desktop; you 'configure' it using settings files and it does all the hard work - no programming required.

Download the Projects PDF from https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/offici ... jects-book, and check the 4 'lessons' about LXDE.

[fruitoftheloom]

This may provide some hints, though based on Raspbian Wheezy

viewtopic.php?f=63&t=125437

[nsuess]

By GUI interface I mean something similar to the user interface that Kodi has where you can navigate seamlessly between features without having to exit to the desktop (I'm still new to this so I might have phrased it poorly). It sounds like it would be a more intensive process to start with LXDE and manipulate the settings files it to have a similar interface to Kodi than it would be to start with Kodi and adjust the features so that it does what I want. I'm not sure how easy it is to change the format of LXDE or how hard it is the change the content of Kodi, so I could be totally off base. Would I use python to create the gauge cluster display for the Kodi app?

I'll download the Official Raspberry Pi Project Book because it seems like a really good resource to have on hand anyways.

[nsuess]

@fruitoftheloom

That threat is the closest thing that I've seen to what I'm trying to do, but it doesn't look like he ever found a resolution to his question about adding in the speedometer and other gauges although it gave me some good ideas for additional features I can use.

[ghans]

You should learn a programming language first. It doesn't matter which one - but you need to learn programming.
Once you've done that , the rest will "fall into place'" so to speak , you will be actually be able to make heads or tails of the stream of
suggestions which is sure to follow.

ghans