Re: A couple of questions

From: Alan Horkan (horkana_at_maths.tcd.ie)
Date: Sat Mar 27 2004 - 18:38:41 EST

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    On Sat, 27 Mar 2004, Filipe Martins wrote:

    > Date: Sat, 27 Mar 2004 00:32:01 -0000
    > From: Filipe Martins <filipe.martins_at_gawab.com>
    > To: abiword-user_at_abisource.com
    > Subject: A couple of questions
    >
    >
    > Hi there. I'm very sorry to contact you directly but I had some problems
    > with majordomo (my mistake surely). I'd like to put you a couple of
    > questions, if you don't mind:
    >
    > I'm quite curious about the ABIWord source code and though I've been
    > reading some docs, a couple of questions remain. Maybe you can help me.
    >
    > - How native are the widgets? I mean, all the widgets in all the platforms
    > are native? That's inside the project's filosophy?

    The widgets on Linux are programmed in GTK, the widgets on Windows are
    seperately programmed native windows widgets and on Mac OS the widgets are
    programmed using Cocoa. (The Beos version used/users the native BeOS
    widgets and I'm fairly sure the QNX port uses their MicroGUI system).
    Not just cross platform but cross toolkit too and that is about as native
    as you can get.

    I'm not sure exactly what you mean by the projects philosophy but when
    abiword was first developed various solutions were examine. They decided
    very quickly that every one wanted native widgets on their own platform,
    the looked at wxWindows and at the time it was not suitable for their
    needs. They looked at GTK but I dont think it was portable enough or
    fully featured enought at the time. They looked at Mozilla and it was too
    heavy weight, more of a top down solution. The AbiSource developers went
    from the bottom up, building their own generic reusable cross platform
    core and implementing seperate native frontends for the 'best of both
    worlds'.

    > - Is it possible to use the ABIWord classes to develop an app, like we would
    > do it with MFC, wxWindows, etc? Is it a good idea?

    Originally the plan was very ambitious to build a whole cross platform
    office suite (AbiCalc, AbiShow, AbiFile, et cetera). It is certainly
    possible, it is another question entirely if it is the right answer to the
    problem you are trying to solve. I could go on but without knowing what
    problem you are trying to solve, without knowing the question it is
    impossible to know the right answer.

    > - What would be the footprint?

    How long is a piece of string?
    That depends entirely on what you are trying to do.
    It worries me that you would even ask that question.

    Questions about programming and compiling Abiword would probably be best
    answered by the expert developers on the Abiword developers list.

    Best of luck

    Sincerely

    Alan Horkan.
    http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/
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