gnustep-dev
[Top][All Lists]
Advanced

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: Windows backend : questions and answers


From: Richard Frith-Macdonald
Subject: Re: Windows backend : questions and answers
Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2007 11:19:08 +0000


On 6 Mar 2007, at 09:10, Xavier Glattard wrote:

Hi

I'm ready to post a 'clean' Windows backend to the repository. Few changes but
i dont want to annoy some... ;-)

And I have some questions.

Here are the changes :

- Deletion of all non-GNUstep debug stuff (printf...)
- Deletion of all Notification hooks (used for a debugging purpose)
- Deletion of the Application preference Panel that popups (pops up?)
  the 1st time you run _any_ application
- rename GSWINHandlesWindowDecorations and GSWIN32HandlesWindowDecorations options to GSW32HandlesWindowDecorations (none worked because of a typo).
- use of GSBackHandlesWindowDecorations option like X11 backend
- all these options are read in -initWithAttribute: (no more in
  +inializeBackend) and set an instance (not class) variable.
- add methods -handlesWindowDecorations/-setHandlesWindowDecorations
- add methods -usesSystemTaskbar/-setUsesSystemTaskbar
- fixing a bug in W32_GLContext (placement of GL subwindow when
  handlesWindowDecoration == YES)

Here are some questions :

- Should the backend options be handled by a SystemPreferences module ?
  (X11 backend options have no dedicated module)

In the long term, I'd like to see this stuff controlled by themes, with overrides provided by manual setting of user defaults or by setting them from a preferences app.

- in my patch handlesWindowDecoration (like X11?) and usesSystemTaskbar are
  set by default : do you agree with these choices ?

Yes but ... I expect the person who added the application preferences panel did so because people want a variety of behaviors ... so I think that removing that panel without providing a better alternative is a mistake. Unfortunately I don't know what the better alternative is. My impression of the preference panel was that it looked quite good and professional to offer the user the option first time stuff was used (though allowing setting the default for all apps as well as just one app would be an improvement). However, this should really be something done when packages are installed for the first time rather than when they are run for the first time. But since we don't have such functionality in gnustep-make, and don't have any other standard installation system, I can see why the author put it into the backend.

- [-stylewindow::] seems not to be used, neither by X11 backend. Delete ?

Seems reasonable to me ... but other people know the gui stuff better.

- GSUseWMStyles option is still present ... have to choose ?
  (=GSBackHandlesWindowDecorations=GSW32HandlesWindowDecorations)

I think we should have the generic GSBack... setttings and drop settings which are specific to a single backend where possible ... while I can see that it may be useful to have different settings for different backends if you are a developer changing between backends a lot, it's not a big effort to make a shell script to set up the defaults you want for the backend you are working with, and it seems to me that using only one set of defaults names would simplify documentation and reduce confusion.

- i suggest to rename GSUseWMTaskbar to GSUseSystemTaskbar or anything.

Yes ... makes sense ... there may be other systems where we want to integrate with someone elses taskbar.

Perhaps GSBackUsesNativeTaskbar ?

- does the backend runs on 64bits system ?
  If it does, why not rename it to MSWin or Win or MSW or something ?

Not yet ... afaik there is no 64bit version of mingw available yet. However, I guess 64bit windows support is likely some time in the future.






reply via email to

[Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread]