Re: GNUstep on MS Windows

[Gregory John Casamento]

Helge,

Sigh, another pointless flamewar...  see below...

--- Helge Hess <helge.hess@opengroupware.org> wrote:
> On Dec 6, 2003, at 5:15 PM, Gregory John Casamento wrote:
> > Granted that they look more like MS-native widgets, then they would 
> > under
> > GNUstep.   I believe that the point is that we need to get GNUstep 
> > *working* on
> > Windows such that there are very few bugs (relative however many bugs 
> > there
> > normally are at any given point. ;) ) and *THEN* we concentrate on 
> > getting the
> > look and feel to be more windows-ish.   Plain and simple.
> 
> No, it isn't simple at all. 

I as referring to my point being "plain and simple" to understand.  Not the
process of making GNUstep use native windows widgets.   Apparently, it was
neither as plain nor as simple to understand as I had orignally thought.

> Of course you need to focus on the ability 
> to work with native widget backends in the first place. This is not 
> something which can be "fixed in" as an afterthought.

As I said previously, unless we change the paradigm by which we are drawing the
views and handling events we cannot use the natvie widgets.  I honestly don't
see this happening in the short term, if ever.  This is the same reason GTK
widgets cannot be used from GNUstep classes.  I'm not saying it's impossible,
just that it will require a certain amount of uphieval in the architechture of
GNUstep itself.
 
> > Using native window widgets directly does not fit into the paradigm of
> > OpenStep/GNUstep in which the widgets are drawn by drawRect: using 
> > postscript
> > commands.
> 
> Which is one reason why AppKit is not suited very well for cross-UI 
> development. And why AppKit on Windows is certainly *not* the missing 
> killer application/feature for GNUstep.

"Not well suited"?  If you mean, it's non-trivial to make GNUstep/OpenStep look
like another UI, then you're correct given either approach we've discussed. 
But it's not impossible.

> > So simply plugging in windows widgets wont work.   The best ew can
> > do is to approximate the look of Windows or whatever other OS we're
> > implementing a new look and feel for.
> 
> Just like Java Swing, ROTFL ;-) Use the native toolkit on the platform, 
> all other approaches are bound to s***.

This comment is beneath response.

> regards,
>    Helge
> -- 
> OpenGroupware.org => http://www.opengroupware.org/

GJC

=====
Gregory John Casamento -- CEO/President Open Logic Corp.
-- bheron on #gnustep, #linuxstep, & #gormtalk ---------------- 
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