Leonard
> >1/ continue like I begun: target Carbon. This provide a code base that will
> >be usable for a MacOS 8.5 port. But this is probably not the best, but far
> >from being the worst.
>
> At this point, I wouldn't spend time worrying about anything
> less than OS X, since those users already have a choice of word
> processors. I believe we should focus on the future and potential
> "customers".
Yes and no. I am not for forgetting completely MacOS Classic. MacOS 9 still
have 2 yrs lifetime in term of software development, because lot of users
are not ready to do the switch.
AbiWord goals is to provide a cross-platform solution and in this case MacOS
8.5/9 has a wider marketshare than MacOS X. Most of the places that will
have MacOS X will also have lot of MacOS 9....
> >4/ Port GTK to MacOS X using CoreGraphics and go as in 2.
>
> Darin Adler and I were talking about this at MacHack as a way
> to bring GNOME apps (like say Nautilus) to Mac OS X in a "more
> compatible" fashion than relying on XFree. We believe that it could
> probably be done in less than a week with someone(s) working on it
> full time.
Actually I have thought about some for the same exact reason: port GTK+ to
CoreGraphics and you'll get GNOME almost for free :-)
> >5/ This is a variant of 1: use Cocoa instead of Carbon. That would speed up
> >the development time of AbiWord for MacOS X, but the code base would not be
> >compatible with MacOS 9.
>
> As noted above, I don't have a problem dropping OS 9 support
> - but I think there are other issues with using Cocoa...
I do, see above.
> The main problem, in my mind, with going to Cocoa is the same
> one that has been discussed over time with using PowerPlant, MFC,
> etc. is that it means breaking away from common code for the
> framework and only using common code for the editing "core".
See what have been done for the BeOS version. BeOS API are a C++ framework.
So I don't see this as a problem, but as an advantage.
Hub
