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