> I'm still pretty darn skeptical about wxWindows for an app like
> AbiWord. It's true that I have reinvestigated wxWindows, and I like
> what I see. However, AbiWord places really huge demands on its
> underlying GUI APIs. I'll be shocked if wxWindows can handle
> AbiWord's needs without at least some code changes to itself.
Hello,
I agree with your statement, but not with your reasoning :-) It's probably
(99%, I'd say) true that currently wxWin lacks some feature AbiWord needs, but,
IMHO, this doesn't mean that wxWin is bad - just that the features in question
haven't yet been added to it!
I don't know at all Abi XP API (sorry), so I don't know what exactly is
missing, but if you're talking about some high-level functionality like
toolbar merging or handling of keyboard shortcuts (possibly together with
a MS-Word like dialog for editing them), then it's true that we don't have
them yet in wxWin - but the examples were not choosen randomly because these
features are exactly the ones next on my TODO list!
So, even though wxWin is probably not capable to fullfill all AbiWord needs
yet, from the point of view of "OpenSource movement" (or a community of
programmers developping free software - call it as you like) it makes
more sense (IMHO, again) to add such high-level features to wxWin and then
reuse them in many different applications rather than implementing them
"just" for AbiWord.
> get everything working in a top-notch manner may require some
> substantial level of work on wxWindows, but both projects would
> benefit from the effort. This would be a Good Thing.
(TM)
> Nonetheless, until wxAbiWord exists and looks as good as the native
> Win32 and GTK versions, some healthy skepticism is quite sensible.
I have no doubt that it's possible to achieve the same thing using wxWin. Of
course, I can't prove it because I just don't have enough time to do it (nor
motivation - considering that 2 our major platforms are already supported quite
well by AbiWord), but if someone is interested in doing it I can only reiterate
that he/she/they will receive all possible support from wxWin developers.
Good luck (continuing) with AbiWord!
VZ