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Cocotron used for a real-world app


From: TMC
Subject: Cocotron used for a real-world app
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2008 14:50:26 -0700 (PDT)

I thought GNUstep folks would like to know that [Cocotron][2], another Cocoa
/ *step implementation, has been used by a Mac software company to [port an
app to Windows][1].

Glen Aspeslagh, one of the authors of the [File Magnet application][3],
posted an overview of the porting process. He contributed code to the
Cocotron project, as he states below:

* Added Unicode path support to the NSFileManager class.
* Added support for displaying truncated strings.
* Added support for drawing Unicode strings. (Not very pretty support.)
* Fixed some issues with the NSSocket implementation.
* Worked around or fixed a number of UI bugs. (It was similar to trying to
get a Cocoa UI to look right in both OS X 10.4 and 10.5.)
* Since Cocotron is not a complete implementation, we had to implement some
methods ourselves, filling in the Windows implementation of the required
Cocoa routines. A few examples:
  - [NSPropertyList dataFromPropertyList:] // (for binary property lists)
  - [NSImage TIFFRepresentation]
  - [NSFileManager subpathsAtPath:]
  - [NSWorkspace iconForFile:]
  - [NSMutableString replaceOccurrencesOfString:withString:option:]

File Magnet Uploader is an application that transfers files between a Mac or
Windows computer and the iPhone (or iPod Touch). It uses a GUI window to
manage transfers, drag-and-drop file transferring, progress bars, and many
other AppKit classes.

[Cocotron has been discussed before][4]. Its authors do not like GNUstep's
license nor GNUstep's approach to installation. Its license is MIT and works
with Xcode to re-target a Cocoa app to Windows (and eventually Linux). Its
MIT license means that GNUstep is legally free to incorporate code from
Cocotron, but Cocotron is not allowed to use GNUstep code. Nevertheless
[using Cocotron code is not feasible][5]:  it would break GNUstep's
convention of copyright assignment, and would mean integrating code that may
rely on Cocotron's specific implementation.

Personally I am glad that Cocotron is open source, and believe that a
friendly rivalry will spur both Cocotron and GNUstep to improve themselves.

[1]: http://macdaddyworld.com/2008/10/27/adventures-in-cocotron/
[2]: http://www.cocotron.org/Info
[3]: http://www.magnetismstudios.com/filemagnet/
[4]: http://www.nabble.com/Cocotron-to8033632.html
[5]: http://www.nabble.com/Using-code-from-Cocotron-to10426241.html

--Tycho Martin Clendenny
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