3 System.Windows.Forms is currently being implemented using the
4 Win32 API, we will be using <a
5 href="http://www.winehq.com">WineLib</a> on Unix systems to
8 Although the original plans were to use Gtk on X and Cocoa on
9 MacOS X, it would be very hard to emulate the event model in
10 which some Winforms applications depend, and it would be very
11 hard to implement the Wndproc method.
13 In terms of integrating visually with the desktop, we are
14 hoping to contribute to the Wine project an mechanism to make
15 it use the Gtk+ themes on X11 and Cocoa on MacOS to render the
16 widgets, and get the native look and feel on each of these
19 There are no current plans to support embedded devices, but
20 Gtk/FrameBuffer is an option. If you have suggestions or
21 recommendations, please let us <a
22 href="mailto:mono-hackers-list@ximian.com">let us know</a>
26 The Winforms effort is being coordinated by <a
27 href="mailto:DENNISH@Raytek.com">Dennis Hayes</a>. If you are
28 interested in helping out with this effort, get in touch with
33 Using existing libraries to implement some of the
34 functionality required:
37 * gdk-pixbuf is a generic image loader that loads an image
38 and leaves it into an RGB buffer. It hides all the details
39 about what image file format is being loaded.
41 * Libart is a general framework for rendering RGB/RGBA
42 buffers into RGB buffers and rendering postscript-like paths into
46 We want to use gdk-pixbuf as the image loader for the image
47 classes, and then we need operations to render that into the
48 windowing system (Gtk+, MacOS, etc). But notice how there is
49 very little dependnecies in Gdk-pixbuf on gtk, and libart has
52 They are pretty independent from a windowing system
53 (gdk-pixbuf comes with some "helper" routines for rendering
54 data into a pixmap and to load pixmaps into RGB buffers).
56 A few things to keep in mind:
60 * gdk-pixbuf can be used to load images for Gtk+,
61 MacOS X and Windows, it should be pretty portable,
62 although we might need in the future to back-port
63 some new features from Gtk head.
65 * Libart is probably only going to be used with X11,
66 as the MacOS X provides the same features in Quartz,
67 and Win32 *probably* has that in GDI+. If not, we
68 should use libart in Win32 as well (or for older
75 System.Drawing (assembly directory)
77 Common code for "Blah"
78 Stubs for "Blah" to ease ports.
82 Gtk ports of "System.Drawing.Blah"
85 MacOS ports of "System.Drawing.Blah"
88 Win32 ports of "System.Drawing.Blah"
91 Notice that there is a proof of concept Gtk-backend for
92 Windows.Forms, but nobody is working on it, and for the
93 reasons stated before it is not a long term strategy.
97 I believe that the graphics contexts that are used to render
98 can accept either libart-like rendering operations and
99 X11-like rendering operations. This complicates matters, but
100 I am not sure. Someone needs to investigate this.