Mike, even your flames are welcome. I know Mike personally and have worked with him in the past, and have nothing but the highest respect. So here's my semi-flame in return.
I've been working with GTK+ and DirectFB for only a few months now, and I only have the limited and poorly maintained information on the web from which to draw my conclusions. I ask you to interpret this statement from the Wiki: "This wiki page is an howto about building GTK+ <http://www.gtk.org> (/http://www.gtk.org/) libraries with DirectFrameBuffer backend enabled, which permits running a generic GTK+ application directly on top of DFB instead of X11. The DFB backend is meant for embedded use so hasn't all the features the X11 backend has but it's complete and stable enough to run even complex applications like the GIMP." I don't see anything here at all like your statement (although I believe your statements). In fact, just the opposite. I'm led to believe that programs, even complicated ones like gimp, can be moved from GTK/X to GTK/DFB. Of course, it all depends on the meaning of "generic" and "permits". Even though I'm porting some VERY complicated GTK/X programs to dfb, many of the most generic examples are not "permitted" to run (and actually work). What is there out there to warn me that this windowing system doesn't fit the assumptions made by gdk? Thus far, I've seen none, other than your response. Worst of all is when management-types see the misinformation out there and come up with project schedules allowing for a "few days" to "migrate" a GTK program to DirectFB... With all due respect, Mike - I think virtually all of the first-time gtk/x to gtk/dfb porters out there are going to think the same thing I did. Perhaps your comment should be added at the front of the wiki in flaming orange. All that being said, as always Mike - your contributions are gratefully accepted and appreciated Mike Emmel wrote: >Semi Flame coming :) > >Gtk is not a cross platform widget library. Its been ported to some extent. >The use of native windows for widgets for example is a design flaw. >It also exposes a lot of concepts that make assumptions about the >underlying system the ability to embed >a widget from one process into another and keep above for example. > >DirectFB gets around these types of problems by having the concept of >capabilities that can be queried >at runtime and you can then consider fallbacks. > >Other widget libraries like WX widgets and even QT are more cross >platform friendly in design. > >Now in working on GTK/DirectFB I realized that DirectFB itself was not >as flexible as I believe it should be. >DirectFB should be a base for any sort of multi application graphical >design including >one similar to X11. Recent releases and concepts Denis is working on >are making DirectFB more flexible every day. Eventually we should >have a windowing environment that fits the assumptions made by Gdk and >other approaches that I'm personally more interested in. > >Back on the Gtk side I think its time to consider a Gtk 3 series that >is designed around a small core that can >be implemented on top of a minimal rootless windowing environment with >the code repackaged as plugins. >I doubt that this will happen instead Gtk seems to be suffering the >same complexity creep that all the other application frameworks suffer >from. > >At the end of the day these large frameworks lose most of the benefits >provided by open source and your reduced to the ability to at best fix >a few superficial bugs. > >So I'm sorry if Gtk/DirectFB does net meet your needs but I'm done >with massive inflexible frameworks I believe that are not the right >way to build things if you really believe in open source. They have >brought in a horrible design concept from the closed source world. > >Flame off :) > >On Dec 5, 2007 7:37 AM, Denis Oliver Kropp <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >>Christopher Johnson wrote: >> >> >>>Unless I am grossly mistaken, any other behavior will create a serious >>>incompatibility between GTK+ backends. I am currently struggling with >>>code that isn't getting events it expects (DirectFB 1.0.0 and GTK+ >>>2.10.13). Sounds like maybe Mike's explanation might cover my problems >>>and incompatibilities with GTK/X. >>> >>> >>If you're not interested in raw X11 events, but only GdkEvents, your code >>should work with GDKDirectFB, otherwise it's a bug and needs to be fixed. >> >> >>-- >>Best regards, >> Denis Oliver Kropp >> >>.------------------------------------------. >>| DirectFB - Hardware accelerated graphics | >>| http://www.directfb.org/ | >>"------------------------------------------" >> >> >> > > > _______________________________________________ directfb-dev mailing list directfb-dev@directfb.org http://mail.directfb.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/directfb-dev
