[openbeos] Re: wxWidgets, was: Re: Pe in SVN ?

  • From: Simon Taylor <simontaylor1@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 11:40:36 +0000

Euan Kirkhope wrote:
IIRC there is an IDE app that is based on wxwidgets.   Plus it's handy
for ports etc.

There is indeed - it's called Code::Blocks and isn't too bad - I've just switched to it as my IDE under Linux.

I'm not sure where I stand on the porting of toolkits to Haiku. Being an open-source platform I believe it's inevitable - I'm sure there will be ports of all Linux widget libraries made by some Linux user who absolutely insists on using their favourite [insert type-of-app here] under Haiku.

What we can control is how "officially" we support these ports. I think Haiku's own native API should definitely have priority support, and all the applications supplied with the base distro should be written natively for Haiku. Any kind of official acceptance of ported toolkits runs the risk of reducing the incentive for people to write Haiku-native applications (eg a ported app may not quite be how I'd like it, but it might be good enough to live with).

There is far more to consistency than just appearance. WxWidgets may lead to apps looking generally like other applications, but consistency should extend to how the app behaves, how the app feels, etc - in short it should be designed as a Haiku application from it's inception.

None of the Linux IDEs behave as I think they should - and as a result a Haiku-Native IDE (I'd look into reusing the Pe code for the documents panel) has made it's way onto my list of things to do when I get spare time. It's a long way down though, so don't actually expect it to happen or anything!

Anyway, I'm rambling - but my point is it's a more complex issue than simply "it will give us more applications, so must be a good thing". As consistency is one of our stated goals (and one of our biggest differentiators, IMHO) it's vital that we give careful consideration to the pros and cons before blindly porting everything.

Simon

On 14/02/2008, Salvatore Benedetto <emitrax@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 14/02/2008, Finn Bastiansen <beos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
 > Hi Francois,
 >
 >  hm, that's interesting, I didn't know about it :-)
 >  I will have to ask the other guys. Or maybe some other person has taken
 >  over the project.


Actually I was wondering, why porting a UI toolkit to Haiku?
 Isn't the Haiku native one good enough?

 Regards,
 Salvo

 Ps. I'm finally back with a internet connection after 3 weeks!

 ---

Salvatore Benedetto (a.k.a. emitrax)
 Student of Computer Engineer
 University of Pisa
 www.messinalug.org






Other related posts: