On Wed, Aug 31, 2022 at 3:50 PM Bidouille wrote:
> Seems to be paused since 2018:
> https://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Win64_port
>
>
So I've been playing around lately, and thinking how to do the Win64 port,
a newer MSVC compiler, and to finish the port to gbuild or a better build
system, all at the same time.
First I tried out the Meson build system (https://mesonbuild.com), which is
getting popular. I can see the attraction, it's elegant, well designed, and
the documentation is good. It's easy to start with. The language is similar
to Python, but not Turing complete to prevent build scripts from getting
too complex. The lack of any functions means that there's only one way to
script the build, and all meson.build files end up looking the same. I got
several modules to build: solenv, soltools, xml2cmp, and began sal. I got
my hopes up, and then hit a fatal flaw: custom targets don't allow
specifying the output directory, meaning that custom targets which output
files to many directories (like our idl files) need many many meson.build
files, one in every possible output directory. This isn't getting fixed
upstream (https://github.com/mesonbuild/meson/issues/2320), and since we
use custom targets extensively, Meson is useless to us. So I gave up on
that attempt but still have that branch around, if anyone wants to have a
look.
Currently I am experimenting with the SCons build system again, but using a
very different approach.
I want to isolate a small number of modules, and get them building with
SCons, in isolation from the rest of OpenOffice. Once this exists, it can
be ported to Win64. It can be ported to newer MSVC. It can be ported
wherever and changed however we need. Then, the rest of OpenOffice can be
ported to it.
Possibly, this could be just the UNO framework, which is critical to the
Win64 port, as the "bridges" component is involved with custom assembly
language calls to and from C++.
It is just too difficult to port the whole of OpenOffice to Win64, or to
newer MSVC, or to a newer build system. At least, broken up, it should be
more manageable.
I'll keep you updated regarding my progress.
Damjan
