* System.Windows.Forms
System.Windows.Forms is currently being implemented using the
Win32 API, we will be using WineLib on Unix systems to
emulate the Win32 API.
Although the original plans were to use Gtk on X and Cocoa on
MacOS X, it would be very hard to emulate the event model in
which some Winforms applications depend, and it would be very
hard to implement the Wndproc method.
In terms of integrating visually with the desktop, we are
hoping to contribute to the Wine project an mechanism to make
it use the Gtk+ themes on X11 and Cocoa on MacOS to render the
widgets, and get the native look and feel on each of these
platforms.
There are no current plans to support embedded devices, but
Gtk/FrameBuffer is an option. If you have suggestions or
recommendations, please let us let us know
* Contributing
The Winforms effort is being coordinated by Dennis Hayes. If you are
interested in helping out with this effort, get in touch with
him.
* System.Drawing
Using existing libraries to implement some of the
functionality required:
* gdk-pixbuf is a generic image loader that loads an image
and leaves it into an RGB buffer. It hides all the details
about what image file format is being loaded.
* Libart is a general framework for rendering RGB/RGBA
buffers into RGB buffers and rendering postscript-like paths into
RGB/RGBA buffers.
We want to use gdk-pixbuf as the image loader for the image
classes, and then we need operations to render that into the
windowing system (Gtk+, MacOS, etc). But notice how there is
very little dependnecies in Gdk-pixbuf on gtk, and libart has
none.
They are pretty independent from a windowing system
(gdk-pixbuf comes with some "helper" routines for rendering
data into a pixmap and to load pixmaps into RGB buffers).
A few things to keep in mind:
* gdk-pixbuf can be used to load images for Gtk+,
MacOS X and Windows, it should be pretty portable,
although we might need in the future to back-port
some new features from Gtk head.
* Libart is probably only going to be used with X11,
as the MacOS X provides the same features in Quartz,
and Win32 *probably* has that in GDI+. If not, we
should use libart in Win32 as well (or for older
Windows systems).
* Directory Layout
System.Drawing (assembly directory)
System.Drawing.Blah
Common code for "Blah"
Stubs for "Blah" to ease ports.
Gtk
System.Drawing.Blah.
Gtk ports of "System.Drawing.Blah"
MacOS
System.Drawing.Blah
MacOS ports of "System.Drawing.Blah"
WineLIB
System.Drawing.Blah
Win32 ports of "System.Drawing.Blah"
Notice that there is a proof of concept Gtk-backend for
Windows.Forms, but nobody is working on it, and for the
reasons stated before it is not a long term strategy.
* Open questions:
I believe that the graphics contexts that are used to render
can accept either libart-like rendering operations and
X11-like rendering operations. This complicates matters, but
I am not sure. Someone needs to investigate this.