Re: GNUstep on MS Windows

[Lars Sonchocky-Helldorf]

Am Donnerstag, 04.12.03 um 16:16 Uhr schrieb Björn Giesler:

> Look-and-feel issues aside, of course. However, I agree with Pete -- 
> we really should have a working, stable(!) implementation before we 
> worry about what the buttons look like. It has been demonstrated that 
> that is easily themeable.

Of course, first things first. But it _is_ important not to realize in 
the end that at some point the wrong route was taken and the way back 
is now obstructed.

I call this a technical design decision. My point was not the look by 
itself, but how to do it right: emulate the look (by drawing widgets 
ourselfs) or use the look (by wrapping native widgets). Ideally the 
necessary wrapping code would be very 'thin' and would communicate over 
a to be defined interface with the actual widget classes the user of 
the OpenStep API uses (like NSButton and so on):

                 ------------
                | "NSWidget" |
                |            |
                |    ----------------
                |   | "NSWidgetPeer" |
                |   | "PlugIn"       |
                |   | interfaces     |
                |   | with the       |
                |   |    ------------
OpenStep        |   |   | native     |      low level
API user  <-->  |   |   | graphic    | <--> drawing
                |   |   | toolkit    |
                |   |    ------------
                |   |                |
                |    ----------------
                |            |
                 ------------

(use monospaced font to view)

In the case where the is no "host system" (like WIN32 or maybe GNOME, 
KDE or even MOTIF) the native graphic toolkit "native to GNUstep" would 
be used (that is a "pure" GNUstep system then) which can be coded to be 
themeable too but would also use the PlugIn mechanism.

How this is done in Java AWT (the old way to GUI before SWING and SWT) 
is described here:

http://www.the-node.org/oreilly/java/awt/ch15_02.htm#JAWT-CH-15-SECT-2

It's worth the read (despite it's about Java, it only describes a 
approach how to abstract an API from various graphic toolkits).

Greetings, Lars