Hi Mark, Sorry for the reply delay.
Le 9 nov. 07 à 14:59, Mark Grice a écrit : > I am working on a new project and I did some research that lead me to > GNUStep, and then to you here at Etoile. I like the concepts of > GNUStep -- but it looks about 100 years old right now, so I am very > interested in your work here. > [snip] > My background (until recently) was working for Expert Systems/ruels > companies. I have this dream of creating an incredibly simply > interface to a rules language to enable a neophyte to string together > and configure computer controlled instruments and gadgets. Sort of > like taking the idea of Skinning an application, Or themeing a > desktop, and applying this to a home... or a car. Put together the > output of one device (i.e. the gas gauge of a car) with the input of > another device (i.e. the GPS of your car to find the nearest gas > station) and create automated rules to make life better. The idea of > the rules system would be "Legos and Logic". Click two things > together, build a simple rule, and presto! new functionality. > > Anyway, there is so much work on the back end of this, that I really > don't want to be building a great GUI and framework -- I would like > to leverage GNUStep and Etoile for most of that work. > > I am not sure I have the C programming background to contribute to > your work... but maybe as I get my C-Legs back under me I can help > with some things. We are always interested in potential new developers. GNUstep too :-) > To be honest, I am probably going to be more of a user of your great > work than a contributor. I would be happy to do what I can though to > help spread the word. I enjoy doing things like writing tutorials and > the like. So, maybe I can best help out there. > > So... that's a little about me.. now I have a question: Where do I > start??? By installing GNUstep and Étoilé :-) More at the end of this mail. To learn about GNUstep development, check this blog entry: <http://www.etoile-project.org/etoile/blog/2006/10/programming-for-toil-and-gnustep.html > > Am I best off just doing my work in GNUStep right now? Or should I > download and try to use Etiole in its current state? You can begin to develop with GNUstep unless you want to use Étoilé specific frameworks. You can also install Étoilé to benefit from the updated look & feel, but you shouldn't expect a polished environment for now. If you want to use Étoilé, you can download a snaphot or check out the repository and build the stable branch. Next year, Étoilé will provide a new set of core frameworks to create Étoilé-native applications. These applications will be fairly different from pure GNUstep applications because we need a different architecture and development model to achieve our goals. However GNUstep applications will still run transparently inside Étoilé and might benefit from various new features for free. If you want to switch to Étoilé development model, this will doable by progressively rewriting some parts of your code. By reading about your project, I think EtoileUI framework could interest you (not ready for public use but available in /branches/ qmathe/Container), initial features were described here: <https://mail.gna.org/public/etoile-dev/2007-07/msg00043.html > The main idea is to aggregate all UI elements (window layer, windows, views, pasteboards etc.) into a uniform UI object tree (each UI object is called a layout item). So a basic set of operations and a very concise API allows you to manipulate every UI objects with more flexibility and less code than usual UI frameworks. AppKit is used somewhat like backend providing support for window server integration, drawing, fonts, run loops, images etc. For example, you can change the internal layout of an UI object to display children items in a table, a column browser or a tree/outline. EtoileUI will render them with AppKit backend as either a table view, a browser view or an outline view. Writing your own backends will be supported, so you will be allowed render or transform the layout item tree as you want. Other important frameworks to come like CoreObject are discussed on the blog and CoreObject is currently splitted in two parts: - <http://svn.gna.org/viewcvs/etoile/trunk/Etoile/Frameworks/EtoileSerialise/ > - <http://svn.gna.org/viewcvs/etoile/trunk/Etoile/Frameworks/ CoreObject/> > I am not really sure how to even do that. I would like to at least add > Camaelon to and WildMenus to GNUStep -- but again, I am not sure how > to do that either. Camaelon and WildMenus are bundles which get injected into applications when you launch them. To build them without compiling all Étoilé, this blog entry might help: <http://www.etoile-project.org/etoile/blog/2007/06/build-individual-toil-component.html > There are README and INSTALL files in each module (with infos about specific settings of these bundles). > (I see them listed in my Synaptic Project > manager... but not sure how to implement them... is there a doc > somewhere?) I think these packages are outdated. There is a big issue with packages currently. Debian/Ubuntu packages tends to be outdated and install more dependencies than needed. However because Étoilé architecture is still unstable, many frameworks and applications are going to be deprecated or replaced. So we haven't tackled the packaging problem for now. In the coming months, I hope the situation will steadily improve giving that core frameworks (mainly CoreObject, EtoileFoundation and EtoileUI) are progressively being worked out. > I am running UBUNTU right now, with GNOME. I have Window Maker > installed, and can boot it -- but I really hate running Window > Maker... I have discovered that I can MOSTLY run Gorm and GNUSTEP > while still in GNOME. Sometimes weird things happen... But it is what > I am doing right now. > > Any suggestions about where I should start? GNUstep windows (including vertical menu) don't take in account GNOME top and bottom panel. I agree it would nice to have this fixed. Étoilé can be run inside GNOME though: <http://www.etoile-project.org/etoile/blog/2007/04/toil-cooler-inside-gnome-who-knows.html > It's not pretty and well tested but it's rather useful time to time. You can use Azalea (Étoilé window manager) instead of WindowMaker if you prefer. You can also install the whole Étoilé environment. This is explained here: <http://www.etoile-project.org/etoile/mediawiki/index.php?title=Install > and precisely in the following document: > <http://svn.gna.org/svn/etoile/trunk/Etoile/INSTALL > There is also a script that installs Ubuntu dependencies, checks out and builds both GNUstep and Étoilé in one pass. Improvements or additional platforms supports for it are welcome :-) It's available here: <http://svn.gna.org/viewcvs/*checkout*/etoile/trunk/Etoile/LiveCD/Subscripts/ubuntu-install-etoile.sh?rev=2120 >. This script installs everything at the root of your file system (prefix '/"). cheers, Quentin. _______________________________________________ Etoile-discuss mailing list [email protected] https://mail.gna.org/listinfo/etoile-discuss
