Re: MacOSX

[John Davidorff Pell]

http://developer.apple.com/pdf/mactech_quartz.pdf

I think this says (under "Drawing Functionality") that Quartz 2D 
provides postscript-like features. As I understand it, OSX is NeXTSTEP 
version 5 (jag is version 6). U can tell by looking at the version 
reported by the darwin layer (10.0,10.1 reported 5, 10.2 reports 6). So 
this should mean (unless I'm very wrong) that its grafix engine is an 
evolved implementation of NeXT's engine. DPS, right?  OSX now also 
includes PDF, QuickTime, and OpenGL in its quartz layer, but I think 
that an app (or group of apps) that use postscript to draw should be 
able to use Quarts w/ little modification. Please correct me if I'm 
wrong. I'm not interested in porting quartz to other systems (that'd be 
a bit more than I can chew) but I am interested in getting GNUStep 
closer to OSX/NeXT/Cocoa, and making it able to use Quartz would pave 
the way for better integration, i think.  I'm going to go look at 
GNUStep Renaissance, that sounds like it may be very useful.

JP





On Saturday, January 18, 2003, at 12:04 AM, Jason Clouse wrote:

> <<Hi all!>>
>
> Hello and welcome!
>
> <<GNUStep uses a Display PostScript system to draw to the screen for 
> the
> same reason that NeXTSTEP did.>>
>
> That was the original plan, but because of deficiencies in the
> Ghostscript implementation and practical considerations, GNUstep has a
> modular graphics backend.  For most people, this means using the X11
> interface.  (There is also a Windows backend, but very few people are
> using it, and it isn't really in a finished state yet).  These backends
> translate into raw GUI calls on the host system, offering high speed
> rendering and decoupling the AppKit from the windowing system used.
>
> <<OSX, being the latest version of NeXTSTEP, does too.>>
>
> Actually, OS X was using Display PDF and QuickTime.  (Now, they're 
> using
> OpenGL I think.)
>
> <<Has anyone out there ever tried to use OSX's DPS system for 
> GNUStep?>>
>
> Do you mean porting Quartz to Linux and using it with GNUstep, or just
> using GNUstep with Quartz on OS X?  For the former, it's pretty much
> impossible because: 1) it would take forever to port; 2) there 
> extremely
> severe patent and copyright restrictions.  For the latter, I'm not
> entirely sure what the situation is.  I believe that you can build
> GNUstep on OS X.  But since the AppKit and Foundation are mostly source
> code compatible with GNUstep Base and GUI, there's not much point.
> You'll get better performance by just recompiling your program with the
> OS X frameworks.
>
> What is really encouraging though is GNUstep Renaissance (available in
> the GNUstep dev-libs package).  It's an XML-based way of representing a
> Cocoa GUI (it replaces .nib interfaces).  It's cross-platform, so you 
> can
> write one GUI and one set of source code and have it build and run on
> both OS X and GNUstep platforms with no modification.  It would take
> advantage of Quartz on OS X.
>
> Hope some of this helps clarify what's going on.  Are you interested in
> doing something with GNUstep?  It would be really cool to get more Mac
> developers interested in the project, since it opens up the possibility
> of building a really vibrant developer community and validating the
> excellent Cocoa technologies.
>
> Peace,
> Jason Clouse
>
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