RE: New (Delphi) xlauncher
I would opt for the wxwindows port - it includes suppport for all the mentioned platforms - including OS/2. (this is btw used/supported by Schitech for their Display Doctor 7.0) I also believe that wxwindows should compile for cygwin - it would be a nice inclusion if anybody had the time and skills to maintain that ( I wish I had - but I lack both skills and time.. ) BTW - I definitely understand the wish for a cross platform solution - when you create such an application it really is much easier to maintain if you only have one piece of sourcecode... Med venlig hilsen / Regards Franz Wolfhagen Harold Hunt [EMAIL PROTECTED]@cygwin.com on 22-07-2002 05:48:24 Sent by: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: cygwin-xfree Mailing List [EMAIL PROTECTED] cc: Subject: RE: New (Delphi) xlauncher wxWindows - a _lot_ like MFC, but cross-platform. Would need to be made into a cygwin package. Would be the easiest to rewrite the delphi app in. win32api isn't very cross platform. Could use wine to port it to unix/linux? I'll look at how hard it would be to build wxWindows dll for cygwin, if that works well, I may use it, otherwise win32api may be the way, although pretty much eliminates a cross platform approach. I am getting seriously confused here. Why are you so excited about making this a cross-platform application? Cite me one example of someone that would need this program to be cross platform. Think about it: you are creating a graphical application that launches a graphical windowing system. Therefore, you have to already have a graphical windowing system of some form running. At last count, that means that you are running either Windows, Mac OS X, OS/2, or maybe BeOS. You certainly can't be running on any platform that uses X11 as the graphical windowing system, because you would have to have X11 running in order to launch X11 via your launcher. Now, the Mac OS X folks have lots of neat ways that their server is already tied into the Mac OS X-specific startup methods and such. Supporting BeOS would be a silly academic waste of effort. OS/2 is similar, but good luck finding a cross-platform toolkit that includes OS/2 support. So, what are your real targets here? Have I missed some operating system that also needs an X launcher utility? Harold
Re: New (Delphi) xlauncher
Jehan wrote: Harold Hunt wrote: Think about it: you are creating a graphical application that launches a graphical windowing system. Therefore, you have to already have a graphical windowing system of some form running. At last count, that means that you are running either Windows, Mac OS X, OS/2, or maybe BeOS. You certainly can't be running on any platform that uses X11 as the graphical windowing system, because you would have to have X11 running in order to launch X11 via your launcher. Now, the Mac OS X folks have lots of neat ways that their server is already tied into the Mac OS X-specific startup methods and such. Supporting BeOS would be a silly academic waste of effort. OS/2 is similar, but good luck finding a cross-platform toolkit that includes OS/2 support. So, what are your real targets here? Have I missed some operating system that also needs an X launcher utility? I think Xnest was mentioned a few days ago... yes, that was it: http://sources.redhat.com/ml/cygwin-xfree/2002-07/msg00166.html http://sources.redhat.com/ml/cygwin-xfree/2002-07/msg00388.html Jehan Oh man, I don't think we should be encouraging anyone to use Xnest. Harold
Re: New (Delphi) xlauncher
Franz Wolfhagen wrote: I would opt for the wxwindows port - it includes suppport for all the mentioned platforms - including OS/2. (this is btw used/supported by Schitech for their Display Doctor 7.0) I also believe that wxwindows should compile for cygwin - it would be a nice inclusion if anybody had the time and skills to maintain that ( I wish I had - but I lack both skills and time.. ) BTW - I definitely understand the wish for a cross platform solution - when you create such an application it really is much easier to maintain if you only have one piece of sourcecode... Franz, I think there is a similar demand for a cross platform X launcher as there is for a cross platform Windows registry editor. My point is that no other platform needs such a beast. Harold
Re: New (Delphi) xlauncher
Dennis Foreman wrote: At one point in history, (before WW II) the head of the US Patent Office said he wanted to close the office because everything that needed to be invented had already been invented and there was nothing left the world needed. He had obviously not yet heard about the need for penicillin or cardiac by-passes. Harold: What about platforms YOU never heard of or don't use? (I have one. And I may very well be interested in the Xlauncher for it.) Okay, I will start working on that cross-platform registry editor right away! Harold
Re: New (Delphi) xlauncher
--- Harold L Hunt II [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dennis Foreman wrote: At one point in history, (before WW II) the head of the US Patent Office said he wanted to close the office because everything that needed to be invented had already been invented and there was nothing left the world needed. He had obviously not yet heard about the need for penicillin or cardiac by-passes. Harold: What about platforms YOU never heard of or don't use? (I have one. And I may very well be interested in the Xlauncher for it.) Okay, I will start working on that cross-platform registry editor right away! Harold, Who's to say that ReactOS won't have a registry? Cheers, Nicholas __ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better http://health.yahoo.com
RE: New (Delphi) xlauncher
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Nicholas Wourms Sent: Tuesday, 23 July 2002 1:36 AM Harold, Who's to say that ReactOS won't have a registry? 1) ReactOS has a registry, and an editor. 2) ReactOS is targeting binary compatability with NT, so it's about as cross platform as installing a mandrake rpm on a redhat machine :}. Rob
Re: New (Delphi) xlauncher
Harold L Hunt II wrote: Dennis Foreman wrote: At one point in history, (before WW II) the head of the US Patent Office said he wanted to close the office because everything that needed to be invented had already been invented and there was nothing left the world needed. He had obviously not yet heard about the need for penicillin or cardiac by-passes. Harold: What about platforms YOU never heard of or don't use? (I have one. And I may very well be interested in the Xlauncher for it.) Okay, I will start working on that cross-platform registry editor right away! Harold Hey, while we are at it, why don't we rewrite the Cygwin setup.exe program to be cross platform so that it can run on Mac OS X?!? Point: some things are so incredibly simple that making a customized version for one platform and letting others worry about other platforms is fine. Obviously, most people here are not considering that the graphics api is only a small part of the effort required to make a cross-platform X launcher. For starters, each X server, including Xnest and XWin, has some server-specific command-line parameters that are not included in other servers. For XWin, we have -engine, -screen, -scrollbars, -lesspointer, etc. If you really wanted to make a cross-platform X launcher, then you would have to do some of the following: 1) Create some sort of method for storing the names of each command-line parameter, descriptions of what it does, options that it takes, etc. 2) Write a parser for the parameter description file, or include some generic parser, like an XML-based parser. 3) Write a heck of a lot of code that either: a) Loads the appropriate parameter-picking window from a list of windows that were defined and drawn at compile time b) Uses hints in the parameter description file to automatically draw controls for each of the defined parameters. 4) Do I need to go on? Writing a Cygwin/XFree86-specific X launcher in C and using the Windows GDI for drawing graphics would maybe take 40 hours. Writing a cross-platform super-neato X luancher would take about 500 hours. Want to prove me wrong? Then code me into submission. Until then, I am the supreme ruler of all programmers! Bow down to me! Bow down! Just kidding. You know, the real problem here is that some people are getting all dreamy eyed talking about which cross-platform toolkit to choose, when they haven't even thought about how difficult and impractical it would be to create a cross platform X launcher. Sure, we can talk all day about which toolkit is better, but that doesn't mean that anyone is actually taking any steps towards creating a cross-platform X launcher. Example: Joe says, ``Hey, I'm going to build the next F-23 fighter for the US Air Force. Which engine should I use, Pratt and Whitney or GE?''. Tom replies, ``I like GE for their reliabiltiy, but man is that PW powerful! I would use the PW''. Harold hears this and interjects, ``Bullshit. Joe, *you* are not building the F-23 fighter.'' If anyone wants to further discuss a cross-platform X launcher, please create a project for a cross-platform X launcher and take your dicussion to that project's mailing list. Further discussion of a cross-platform X launcher is not relevant to this mailing list. Harold
Re: New (Delphi) xlauncher
--- Harold L Hunt II [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Robert Collins wrote: -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Nicholas Wourms Sent: Tuesday, 23 July 2002 1:36 AM Harold, Who's to say that ReactOS won't have a registry? 1) ReactOS has a registry, and an editor. 2) ReactOS is targeting binary compatability with NT, so it's about as cross platform as installing a mandrake rpm on a redhat machine :}. Rob Thank you for pointing out the weakness in that one. You are not welcome. Damnit, I don't care one way or another, because the idea of an Xlauncher is useless for me. However, I do agree that people should worry about it elsewhere. Cheers, Nicholas __ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better http://health.yahoo.com
RE: New (Delphi) xlauncher
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Tim Thomson Sent: Sunday, July 21, 2002 9:41 PM To: cygwin-xfree Mailing List Subject: New (Delphi) xlauncher Hi there, To those of you interested in the progress of my xlauncher program(s), I have added some more features to the Delphi version. These include storing and retrieving configuration sessions to and from the registry, multiple font path, or font server specification, and better support for -from parameter, it now uses your IP, instead of name. If it can't find an IP address, it doesn't provide the parameter to XWin.exe. It is available at http://xlauncher.sourceforge.net Fair enough. I'm still not sure where to head with the non-delphi version. I have some options, but all have disadvantages: libW11 doesn't look like it will do everything I need without the use of more libraries, ie xforms or gtk. Whoever suggested libW11 was smoking some great crack. libW11 is by no means a complete API. I'll just forget that this was ever mentioned. (I'm not complaining to you, I'm just complaining) gtk isn't stable enough yet? wxWindows - a _lot_ like MFC, but cross-platform. Would need to be made into a cygwin package. Would be the easiest to rewrite the delphi app in. win32api isn't very cross platform. Could use wine to port it to unix/linux? I'll look at how hard it would be to build wxWindows dll for cygwin, if that works well, I may use it, otherwise win32api may be the way, although pretty much eliminates a cross platform approach. I am getting seriously confused here. Why are you so excited about making this a cross-platform application? Cite me one example of someone that would need this program to be cross platform. Think about it: you are creating a graphical application that launches a graphical windowing system. Therefore, you have to already have a graphical windowing system of some form running. At last count, that means that you are running either Windows, Mac OS X, OS/2, or maybe BeOS. You certainly can't be running on any platform that uses X11 as the graphical windowing system, because you would have to have X11 running in order to launch X11 via your launcher. Now, the Mac OS X folks have lots of neat ways that their server is already tied into the Mac OS X-specific startup methods and such. Supporting BeOS would be a silly academic waste of effort. OS/2 is similar, but good luck finding a cross-platform toolkit that includes OS/2 support. So, what are your real targets here? Have I missed some operating system that also needs an X launcher utility? Harold
