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* System.Windows.Forms
The System.Windows.Forms effort is taking two paths:
<ul>
<li>Win32/Wine-based: This effort will use the Win32
API, and use a stub program to run the with Wine.
This allows applications that use P/Invoke to
function, and event delivery through the Wndproc
method to work for the most advanced and custom
applications. This is the path of best compatibility.
Also, work on a Gtk-based rendered for Wine will be
done, to make the user interface integrate with your
desktop look.
<li>Gtk# based: This effort will build a subset of
Windows.Forms that uses Gtk#. This gives a better
integration with the desktop, but will not be
completely compatible with the Windows edition. In
particular code that uses P/Invoke to call into Win32
or overwrite the Wndproc method to achieve special
effects will not work.
</ul>
* Win32/Wine edition.
<table>
<tr>
<td>
System.Windows.Forms is currently being implemented using the
Win32 API, we will be using <a
href="http://www.winehq.com">WineLib</a> on Unix systems to
emulate the Win32 API.
This means that those who want to contribute to the effort can
develop and test classes today using Windows and P/Invoke
calls to Win32 and we will then just run the result on Unix.
In terms of integrating visually with the desktop, we are
hoping to contribute to the Wine project an mechanism to make
it use the Gtk+ themes on X11 and Cocoa on MacOS to render the
widgets, and get the native look and feel on each of these
platforms.
</td>
<td>
<a href="images/WINESWF.JPG"><img src="images/WINESWF-mini.JPG"></a>
</td>
</table>
* Gtk# based
The code is contained in CVS.
There are no current plans to support embedded devices, but
Gtk/FrameBuffer is an option. If you have suggestions or
recommendations, please let us <a
href="mailto:mono-hackers-list@ximian.com">let us know</a>
* Contributing
The Winforms effort is being coordinated in the <a
href="mailto:mono-winforms-list@ximian.com:.com">mono-winforms-list@ximian.com</a>.
If you are interested in helping out with this effort,
subscribe to it by sending an email message to <a
href="mailto:mono-winforms-list-request@ximian.com:.com">mono-winforms-list-request@ximian.com</a>.
If you want to help, you can start by writing a control and
testing it with Windows today (or you can also try to build
the existing library on Linux, but this is a bit more
complicated).
See the file mcs/class/System.Windows.Forms/CheckOutList for
details on who is working on which class.
Please read the README document in the
System.Windows.Forms/WINElib directory for details about how
to build the Windows.Forms support for Mono.
* System.Drawing
Using existing libraries to implement some of the
functionality required:
<ul>
* gdk-pixbuf is a generic image loader that loads an image
and leaves it into an RGB buffer. It hides all the details
about what image file format is being loaded.
* Libart is a general framework for rendering RGB/RGBA
buffers into RGB buffers and rendering postscript-like paths into
RGB/RGBA buffers.
</ul>
We want to use gdk-pixbuf as the image loader for the image
classes, and then we need operations to render that into the
windowing system (Gtk+, MacOS, etc). But notice how there is
very little dependnecies in Gdk-pixbuf on gtk, and libart has
none.
They are pretty independent from a windowing system
(gdk-pixbuf comes with some "helper" routines for rendering
data into a pixmap and to load pixmaps into RGB buffers).
A few things to keep in mind:
<ul>
* gdk-pixbuf can be used to load images for Gtk+,
MacOS X and Windows, it should be pretty portable,
although we might need in the future to back-port
some new features from Gtk head.
* Libart is probably only going to be used with X11,
as the MacOS X provides the same features in Quartz,
and Win32 *probably* has that in GDI+. If not, we
should use libart in Win32 as well (or for older
Windows systems).
</ul>
* Directory Layout
<pre>
System.Drawing (assembly directory)
System.Drawing.Blah
Common code for "Blah"
Stubs for "Blah" to ease ports.
Gtk
System.Drawing.Blah.
Gtk ports of "System.Drawing.Blah"
MacOS
System.Drawing.Blah
MacOS ports of "System.Drawing.Blah"
WineLIB
System.Drawing.Blah
Win32 ports of "System.Drawing.Blah"
</pre>
Notice that there is a proof of concept Gtk-backend for
Windows.Forms, but nobody is working on it, and for the
reasons stated before it is not a long term strategy.
* Open questions:
I believe that the graphics contexts that are used to render
can accept either libart-like rendering operations and
X11-like rendering operations. This complicates matters, but
I am not sure. Someone needs to investigate this.
* Historical
Although the original plans were to use Gtk on X and Cocoa on
MacOS X, it would be very hard to emulate the event model in
which some Winforms applications depend, and it would be very
hard to implement the Wndproc method.
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