Re: [Gtk]MathView under MacOSX

Hi Frank,

On Sun, 2005-08-07 at 21:44 +0100, Francis James Franklin wrote:
> (1) [no-undefined] Adding -no-undefined to the libtool link flags makes
> it build the libraries in a better way and prevents problems when
> loading plug-ins that I have encountered in the past with libwpd.
> Unfortunately, since it uses gcc rather than g++ to link, this means
> having to add -lstdc++ to the link line explicitly.

No problem. Adding -lstdc++ does not appeal me either, but as far as I
understand it the -no-undefined will just make the linker complain if
all the symbols are not resolved.

> (Don't try adding -no-undefined to the svg-backend library. Btw, I
> don't know, but see if adding -no-undefined eliminates the need for
> static-variable hacks in CharTraits.icc.)

I'll try this next time I boot MacOSX.

> (2) [popt-framework] This adds the option to build gtkmathview against
> popt if the latter has been built as a framework rather than a library.
> This is very useful for AbiWord on OSX but is unlikely to be used
> otherwise, so I'll understand if you don't want to commit this one to
> gtkmathview.

This is just configuration stuff, it only affects configure, and it is
configure's duty to provide the "right" build environment so it doesn't
bother me to commit this. I only feel a little uneasy as I don't really
have a clue as to what a "framework" is... :-)

> Relocatable library:
>
> My main concern at this point is the sysconf & pkgdata files associated
> with gtkmathview. The way I want to package this library means that the
> locations of these files is not known at compilation time. The trouble
> is that these paths are hard-coded in the source or given as absolute
> paths in the configuration file.
[...]

The handling of configuration files has been subject of rather nasty
experiments in the last few releases. I have tried to accommodate
basically all the mechanisms that one usually finds in libraries and
tools with configuration files that can be overridden. But if you have
any suggestions that may simplify or straighten up the whole thing, I'd
be glad to hear about them. Basically, the two constraints I have to
live with are
1) it must be possible to override entries in the configuration, so that
one can write a "delta" configuration that contains only the minimal
changes with respect to the default one (feature strongly desired)
2) it must be possible to add at runtime the paths to the dictionaries.
This is already possible indirectly, as these paths are contained in
configuration files that can be specified at runtime (early enough
before gtkmathview's initialization) (feature required)

It seems like one would also desire, sometimes, a way of disabling the
"load the default configuration file" feature, and possibly a more
convenient way of specifying the locations of the dictionaries. Right
now I can't see a solution that gets along smoothly with the rest of the
initialization stuff, but I might just be a little tired...

I'll let you know about the patches as soon as I finish a round of make
distchecks on both linux and macosx.

Thanks
--luca