Re: Abiword Win32 Unicode Strategy - thoughts and proof of concept

I am of the opinion that we should hang on for dear life to that Win9x
capability, even if it is below-quality of the software on Win2k. Tomas
had suggested that the work in porting Abi on Windows to Unicode did not
require a decision about Unicows (and indeed, that it would just be a
little linking and installation-detection magic to package it), to the
best of my understanding, when I took the Win32 maintainer position.
That said, you've clearly put a lot of work into this, and I would
recognize your experience with Unicode and Windows over my foggy
recollection any day, especially considering you're making good on a
promise you didn't even make. :) If the Unicows capability is not too
far out of reach, I can certainly attempt that and set up a very basic
regression-testing (does it build? does it load?) environment on Win9x
in a virtual machine, especially if I manage to squeak by our crack team
of mentors with an SoC spot.

In the past, I have been under the impression we don't generally factor
in Microsoft into our major design decisions. While I would not want
their lack of support for a platform that still holds much "recruitment"
or "evangelism/marketing" promise to make this decision for us, if there
is an insurmountable technical challenge, I certainly defer to your
judgement.

Wow, that was a lot longer, wordier, and more serious than I intended it
to be. Basically, I like still supporting Win9x just for the fact we
can get people comfortable with the software then transitions become
easier, but as long as we have some acceptable Win9x version (that we
publicize) in lieu of the most up to date version due to a technical
impossibility, I guess that's all I can really ask for!

Thanks so much for your work! I promise to stop slacking soon! :-P

Ryan

(PS - this discussion revealed to me I have little idea of what Unicows
is. I thought going to Unicode and using that would reduce bugs overall
and reduce maintainer issues, and I had no idea it was so involved...)
Jordi Mas wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> As many of you already know Abiword in Win32 is an ANSI application.
> Since the
> begining of February, I have been experimenting on porting Abi to
> Unicode.
>
> I think that benefits of Unicode are clear to all:
>
> - Support for the many new "Unicode only" languages such as Hindi,
> Georgian,
> Nepali,Armenian, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Konkani. We already have
> Abiword
> translated to Napali that is only a Unicode language. And more will come.
>
> - Improving international and multilingual support:
> * Better integration with the features of the NT platform
> * Better support of the Multilingual UI (MUI) features of Windows
> 2000/XP/Vista
>
> Some data that I think that is also relevant:
>
> * Microsoft dropped support for the last Win9x (Windows ME) on July 11,
> 2006[1]. Win9x is not longer a supported platform.
>
> * In most of the webs that I have access Win9x counts bellow the 3% of
> users.
> May be some one can check the Abiword site stats? In any case, a
> decreasing
> user base.
>
> For me, the options that we have:
>
> 1) Port Abiword completely to Unicode (after 2.6) and drop support for
> Win9x
> platforms (ANSI) after Abiword 2.6 and refer users always of these
> platforms
> to Abiword version 2.6. Keep a stable branch 2.6 that we keep updating
> for
> important bugs and security updates.
>
> 2) Port Abiword completely to Unicode and keep supporting ANSI and
> UNICODE
> Builds using the Unicows[2]. In my experience, unicows builds are
> inestable.
>
> 3) Port Abiword completely to Unicode and keep supporting both
> platforms using
> separate builds.
>
> What I think makes more sense to me is option 1. This allows us to
> concentrate
> and grow as a full Unicode application without worring obout legacy
> systems,
> that even in developing countries, are going to be extint next year.
> Even for
> those, we can still offer 2.6.
>
> * My proof of concept
>
> What I have been working these days is basically option 3). I dropped
> option 2
> because the Unicows port always has been very unstable for me.
>
> * How is implemented that I have:
>
> - The internal chartset code for Win32 is now UTF-8. Before was the
> user's
> charset locale. Since the user locale can be single bit in ANSI builds
> and it
> is double-byte in Unicode builds I think it is better to standarized
> to UTF-8
> that is the charset code used internally also by Abiword in most of
> the places.
>
> - There is a new class called UT_Win32LocaleString that encapsulates the
> strings that are displayed and collected from the operating system
> (mainly
> User Interface wifgets) and that has a Unicode and an ANSI
> implementation.
> Also the TCHAR and tchar.h macros are used.
>
> - About 70% of the dialog boxes are ported to be able to compile using
> ANSI
> and Unicode builds. The code of the non-ported dialog boxes has been
> remove
> temporary to allow compilation.
>
> * Code
>
> - Source code (diff):
> http://www.softcatala.org/~jmas/abi/unicode.diff and
> http://www.softcatala.org/~jmas/abi/ut_Win32LocaleString.cpp and
> http://www.softcatala.org/~jmas/abi/ut_Win32LocaleString.h
> - Win32 ANSI build:
> http://www.softcatala.org/~jmas/abi/abi251_ansi_build_bin.zip
> - Win32 UNICODE build:
> http://www.softcatala.org/~jmas/abi/abi251_ansi_unicode_bin.zip
> - Unicode Abiword running in Nepali (not possible with Ansi):
> http://www.softcatala.org/~jmas/abi/nepali.png
>
> * Estimation
>
> My estimation is that whatever approach we follow there are still two
> months
> work. Also, it is going to be good to have a long period of testing
> because
> basically all the Win32 UI classes are going to be affected. Testing will
> point out things that we missed during the porting. In fact, even
> today in STABLE the are bugs related to encoding.
>
> * Next steps
>
> - Decide which approach we want to follow
> - Evolve the current proof of concept to match the decission taken (for
> example moving from TCHAR to WCHAR if option 1 is decided).
> - Decide if we wait until 2.4.6 is release to commit the final code or
> we use
> a branch. For me, if 2.4.6 is released in less than a month the branch
> does
> not make sense.
>
> Well, that's all for now.
>
> Best regards,
>
> [1] http://www.microsoft.com/windows/support/endofsupport.mspx).
> [2]
> http://www.microsoft.com.nsatc.net/globaldev/handson/dev/mslu_announce.mspx
>

-- 
Ryan Pavlik
AbiWord Win32 Platform Maintainer, Art Lead: www.abisource.com
AbiWord Community Outreach Project: www.cleardefinition.com/oss/abi/blog/
"Optimism is the father that leads to achievement."
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