Re: GNUstep on MS Windows

[Helge Hess]

On 05.12.2003, at 09:35, Pascal J.Bourguignon wrote:
> Helge Hess writes:
> > a) cross-CPU, like NeXTstep for i386, SPARC, HP and m68k
> > b) cross-OS, like X11 on Windows, Linux and MacOSX
> > c) cross-UI, like SWT using gtk+ on Linux and Win-UI on Windows
> >
> > IMHO GNUstep/AppKit on Windows is pretty useless. OpenStep is the 
> > wrong
> > technology to do option c) above. It can do a) and b), but a) doesn't
> > solve the Windows issue and b) provides little value.
> What  do you  mean exactly  by  "GNUstep/AppKit on  Windows is  pretty
> useless"?

Well, I explained in the mail ;-) (BTW: I'm referring to "/AppKit", the 
/ is not to be read as "and")

> I thought that it was clear that an implementation of the OpenStep API
> on MS-Window would open markets to GNUstep and MacOSX developers, this
> would not be useless.

If the result works out, sure. I explained about that in my mail as 
well, please reread. Of course AppKit on Windows (whether from Apple or 
from GNUstep) somewhat expands the market. But to think that a Windows 
user would use GNUmail with a completely different look&feel on Windows 
instead of Mozilla or Outlook is just ridiculous.

The issues are a bit different for non-AppKit applications - like OGo 
or gstep-web servers. While this still has issues due to Windows doing 
things different (eg integration as a Windows service in the Windows 
management infrastructure), the enduser doesn't need to tweak with 
that.

> Why do you think that "OpenStep is the wrong technology to do option 
> c)"?
>
> It seems  to me that it has  been designed and a  sufficient number of
> implementation have been made to implement this cross-UI. OpenStep ran
> on Solaris, and on MS-Windows-NT, and  now runs on MacOSX and on Linux
> or other unix with GNUstep.

Wrong. Neither was cross-UI. And BTW all required to redo your nibs for 
each platform and each language, which obviously is maintainance 
nightmare and *not* what is meant by cross-platform UI.

Of course Renaissance could help a lot on this front, but this
a) still has tight dependencies to OpenStep, like pasteboards, which 
just don't work that way on Windows (BTW: neither on X11 ...)
b) still needs a lot of work to evolve into something as complete as XUL

> I guess  that you're saying that  since GNUstep is  drawing itself its
> widgets, it can't provide cross-UI.

Yes, that is the basic tenor.

> But it seems  to me that the drawing code  is rather well encapsulated
> (in a  few drawing methods of  a little number  of graphical classes),
> and  that it should  be possible  to either  fork a  theme, or  to use
> MS-Windows widgets to do the actual drawing.

If it is that easy - which I do not believe - then yes, do it that way.


Anyway, I also suggest to work on getting GNUstep/AppKit solid on X11 
first before attempting to port to Windows.

regards,
  Helge
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