Subject: Re: libglade summary
From: Paolo Molaro (lupus@lettere.unipd.it)
Date: Sun Feb 11 2001 - 16:21:10 CST
On 02/11/01 Joaqu?n Cuenca Abela wrote:
> > only with gnome-config (installed by libgnome-dev). I see that
> > can be a weak argument, but installing libgnome-dev is not a big deal
> > on a development machine unless you are an anti-gnome advocate
> > (but that is your problem anyway:-).
>
> I'm not an anti-gnome advocate, but the point of a non-gnome dependent
It was a "generic" you, not directed specifically to you:-)
> > targeting windows users was important for the company, but that should not
> > be a great concern now that abiword is more community-supported.
>
> There are some windows users in the community :-)
I'm not against window users: if that platform has a technology that can speed
up abiword development, by all means they should use it.
Adding support for embeddable objects could have begun there a year or more
ago, driving the use of bonobo on unix, for example. Instead what is more
likely is bonobo support first, now:-)
Instead I see that we have gettext and abiword doesn't use it, we
have an aa canvas but abiword doesn't use it, we have other cool stuff
but abiword doesn't use it because it's not available on platform x.
And instead of porting the technology to platform x, the wheel is
reivented for every item. What will happen in a couple of months
when pango and gtk 2.0 will be released? Will abiword developers
reimplement pango functionality in unix, windows etc, instead of
helping the pango port?
> > The problem is that a lot of effort goes into XP and at the same time the
> > layout engine has seen little or no changes and a lot of development time
> > is spent in dialog (?) or other basic support issues.
>
> nah, it's only that the layout engine is hardest to understand. If you
> had a platform specific wp, you will have many little contributions for
> the dialogs and general UI fixes, but anyway few people will understand
> and be able to contribute to the layout. Nothing to do with xp.
I claim that all the time spent on XP, on dialogs that take minutes to
build with rad tools and on gettext replacements could have benn better
spent on documenting/enhancing/studying the layout engine.
> > Another example: for quite some time there were little gliches here and
> > there in the rendering code (the cursor let ink drops etc.). If abiword
> > used GnomeCanvas as the rendering engine that would not be a problem
>
> Are you thinking in using an entire widget per char? :-)
?? You would use a single canvas for each file displayed, that's
a widget per file. A canvas item would be needed for each displayed run,
but that is not a waste at all.
> GnomeCanvas solves refresh problems, but not "ink drops". It's up to
> your canvas item to not leave "ink drops".
It's so hard to get this wrong with the canvas that that's not a useful
distinction:-) Besides, a canvas line item is already implemented.
Making it blink is 5 lines of code.
Enough for a rant, just wanted to spark some discussion from a would be
user that is not willing to spend develop time if he doesn't agree with
the direction of the project and is frightened at the idea of having to
use staroffice:-)
lupus
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