Re: Docking merged into GTk / Anjuta 1 being ported

[Gustavo Giráldez <gustavo giraldez gmx net>]

Hi,

On Tue, 2002-09-17 at 01:13, Biswapesh Chattopadhyay wrote:
> > I would like to suggest to try to integrate  the code for the docking
> > system in Anjuta 2 into GTk, because I think it should  be part of the
> > overall user interface and is as usable as docking in MFC  apps.
> > Further I wonder why Anjuta 1 is being ported to  GNOME2, because Anjuta 2
> > looks great and just lacks some features that are  easily added. And in my
> > opinion the great advantage of Anjuta2 is its  modularity.
> 
> 1) About docking, an attempt was made to merge it into GTK+ in the long
> term by moving it into libegg by Gustavo. I'm not sure what the progress
> it, but Havoc/GTK team wanted the following:
> 	a) Investigate the dock widget API of various toolkits (KDE, .NET (i.e.
> Windows.Forms), QT, MFC, Java).
> 	b) Come up with an API that incorporates the best parts of each and is
> flexible enough to remain API/ABI compatible for a long time without
> compromising on features.
> 	c) Post the API and let others comment on it.
> 	d) Move the code to libegg and let it stabilize there.
> 	e) Move to GNOMEUI/GTK+ depending on dependencies (For example, if
> you're using GConf to store the widget positions for GdlDock, then you
> can't move it to GTK+ - you'll have to move it to GNOMEUI)
> 
> The above approach definitely makes sense, but it tends to slow things
> down. I'm not sure how far Gustavo has progressed but I haven't seen any
> API analysis posting on GtkDevel/GnomeDevel - so my guess is not much.

I did a) some time ago.  Check:
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gtk-devel-list/2002-June/msg00084.html
and the thread that originated that message 
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gtk-devel-list/2002-June/msg00005.html

At that moment nobody replied to my analysis, so I was discouraged
feeling there was not much interest in getting a dock widget to gtk+. 
So I decided to wait.

All in all, I would like to see GdlDock moved to gtk+.  I think the
architecture is pretty solid, though it still has some rough edges.  I
don't have much time right now, but if somebody is willing to propose an
API I will happily help him.

Regards,
Gustavo