3 The System.Windows.Forms effort is taking two paths:
6 <li>Win32/Wine-based: This effort will use the Win32
7 API, and use a stub program to run the with Wine.
8 This allows applications that use P/Invoke to
9 function, and event delivery through the Wndproc
10 method to work for the most advanced and custom
11 applications. This is the path of best compatibility.
13 Also, work on a Gtk-based rendered for Wine will be
14 done, to make the user interface integrate with your
17 <li>Gtk# based: This effort will build a subset of
18 Windows.Forms that uses Gtk#. This gives a better
19 integration with the desktop, but will not be
20 completely compatible with the Windows edition. In
21 particular code that uses P/Invoke to call into Win32
22 or overwrite the Wndproc method to achieve special
23 effects will not work.
31 System.Windows.Forms is currently being implemented using the
32 Win32 API, we will be using <a
33 href="http://www.winehq.com">WineLib</a> on Unix systems to
34 emulate the Win32 API.
36 This means that those who want to contribute to the effort can
37 develop and test classes today using Windows and P/Invoke
38 calls to Win32 and we will then just run the result on Unix.
40 In terms of integrating visually with the desktop, we are
41 hoping to contribute to the Wine project an mechanism to make
42 it use the Gtk+ themes on X11 and Cocoa on MacOS to render the
43 widgets, and get the native look and feel on each of these
47 <a href="images/WINESWF.JPG"><img src="images/WINESWF-mini.JPG"></a>
54 The code is contained in CVS.
56 There are no current plans to support embedded devices, but
57 Gtk/FrameBuffer is an option. If you have suggestions or
58 recommendations, please let us <a
59 href="mailto:mono-hackers-list@ximian.com">let us know</a>
63 The Winforms effort is being coordinated in the <a
64 href="mailto:mono-winforms-list@ximian.com:.com">mono-winforms-list@ximian.com</a>.
65 If you are interested in helping out with this effort,
66 subscribe to it by sending an email message to <a
67 href="mailto:mono-winforms-list-request@ximian.com:.com">mono-winforms-list-request@ximian.com</a>.
69 If you want to help, you can start by writing a control and
70 testing it with Windows today (or you can also try to build
71 the existing library on Linux, but this is a bit more
74 See the file mcs/class/System.Windows.Forms/CheckOutList for
75 details on who is working on which class.
77 Please read the README document in the
78 System.Windows.Forms/WINElib directory for details about how
79 to build the Windows.Forms support for Mono.
83 Using existing libraries to implement some of the
84 functionality required:
87 * gdk-pixbuf is a generic image loader that loads an image
88 and leaves it into an RGB buffer. It hides all the details
89 about what image file format is being loaded.
91 * Libart is a general framework for rendering RGB/RGBA
92 buffers into RGB buffers and rendering postscript-like paths into
96 We want to use gdk-pixbuf as the image loader for the image
97 classes, and then we need operations to render that into the
98 windowing system (Gtk+, MacOS, etc). But notice how there is
99 very little dependnecies in Gdk-pixbuf on gtk, and libart has
102 They are pretty independent from a windowing system
103 (gdk-pixbuf comes with some "helper" routines for rendering
104 data into a pixmap and to load pixmaps into RGB buffers).
106 A few things to keep in mind:
110 * gdk-pixbuf can be used to load images for Gtk+,
111 MacOS X and Windows, it should be pretty portable,
112 although we might need in the future to back-port
113 some new features from Gtk head.
115 * Libart is probably only going to be used with X11,
116 as the MacOS X provides the same features in Quartz,
117 and Win32 *probably* has that in GDI+. If not, we
118 should use libart in Win32 as well (or for older
125 System.Drawing (assembly directory)
127 Common code for "Blah"
128 Stubs for "Blah" to ease ports.
132 Gtk ports of "System.Drawing.Blah"
135 MacOS ports of "System.Drawing.Blah"
138 Win32 ports of "System.Drawing.Blah"
141 Notice that there is a proof of concept Gtk-backend for
142 Windows.Forms, but nobody is working on it, and for the
143 reasons stated before it is not a long term strategy.
147 I believe that the graphics contexts that are used to render
148 can accept either libart-like rendering operations and
149 X11-like rendering operations. This complicates matters, but
150 I am not sure. Someone needs to investigate this.
154 Although the original plans were to use Gtk on X and Cocoa on
155 MacOS X, it would be very hard to emulate the event model in
156 which some Winforms applications depend, and it would be very
157 hard to implement the Wndproc method.