[lazarus] native Win32 Interface

[Michael A. Hess]

cryst wrote:

 >
 > My suggestion is that the whole group code towards wxWindows.


As was stated there is no reason why someone can't develop and LCL 
interface to wxWindows, but as to it being the best choice, I can't agree.

What the LCL interface code does is create a direct link between the 
widget API and the LCL objects. In our case we started with GTK since, 
as was also mentioned, it isn't written using C++ objects.

Now as you point out wxWindows gives you a cross platform capability 
when coding. But it does this by using a generic interface between your 
code and the widget API. This is exactly the same thing that the LCL 
interface is doing. So if you look at the Unix/Linux versions of 
wxWindows it uses GTK or Motif to provide the GUI widgets.

This would mean we would be writing a generic independent set of objects 
in the LCL, that would talk to an interface written to communicate with 
wxWindows, which then in turn talks to an interface which talks to GTK.

That is adding a WHOLE lote of extra interface for no additional benefit.

I think one thing that has to be made clear at this point is that it 
isn't the capabilities of the Lazarus LCL that are being worked on. For 
the most part what is being worked on now is the IDE itself. The 
interface between the LCL and GTK is fairly complete and stable. In fact 
the very fact that the IDE operates as it does is a testiment to the 
completeness of the LCL/GTK interface. The IDE or any IDE for that 
matter is a very complex and involved application.

The Windows verions of Lazarus using the Win32/GTK would work better if 
it could use the latest set of GTK libraries. However, given the fact 
that the Win32/GTK libraries are usually behind in development of the 
Unix set it never seems to be as stable. When a 2.0 version of Win32/GTK 
is finally available we might see more stability and a closer 
compatibility between Linux GTK and Windows GTK.

As an alternative to Win32/GTK a direct Win32 API interface is being 
worked on. This means that it would be more stable and written directly 
for Windows. However, this needs developers to help with this effort.


-- 
==== Programming my first best destiny! ====

Michael A. Hess      Miracle Concepts, Inc.
mhess at miraclec.com   http://www.miraclec.com