Re: glib support for (classic) MacOS

[Deirdre Saoirse <deirdre deirdre net>]

On Wed, 4 Oct 2000, Ralph Giles wrote:

> We're considering using g_module for dynamically loadable driver
> support in ghostscript. I understand that works fine on win32 and a
> reasonable assortment of unicies; we'd like to add Classic MacOS
> support as well, wrapping the Code Fragment Manager.

God, that would be so excellent!

> Raph Levien pointed out that there have been efforts to port glib/gtk+
> to MacOS. I found sourceforge.net/projects/mac-gtk/ and was wondering
> about the status of the port. Are there other efforts I should be
> aware of? It looks like you're using MW CodeWarrior; I'm unfortunately
> stuck with the (free to download) MPW environment for now. Are there
> any gotchas moving code between the two?

As far as status goes, just looking at CVS, a lot of the needed stuff
hasn't been done.

I haven't been carrying my iBook around as much so I haven't been futzing
with the project. In part, this is also because of TiVo's (my employer's)
release schedule -- engineering has been really hectic preparing for
Christmas. Now that the release rush is mostly over, I can dedicate some
time again.

As far as compiler differences, almost any Unix person would be more comfy
in MPW. There are slight syntactic differences, but it's been so long
since I seriously used MPW (1986?) I've forgotten them. Much of the
difference is in casts and error reporting -- annoying.

As far as I know, there's no other efforts in progress. Arnaud and I
started independently; I was hoping that putting the page up on
sourceforge would combine any efforts rather than diverge them. So far,
it's been working, but there hasn't been a lot of activity. I update the
project web pages by this weekend to really reflect what's been done and
what needs to be done.

> We're just interested in glib at this point, but I wanted to avoid
> duplicating work.

I think most of the work for glib still needs to be done. I hadn't really
looked at that part so much as most of my interest was Gtk+ itself (but of
course glib is a necessary part).

Given that the gory details of mapping some of the Gtk stuff to internal
toolbox calls, where necessary, may not be of interest to the gtk list as
a whole, would it be appropriate to create a glib-mac list (I can do it
for the gtk-mac project) for people interested in the porting?

> Also, is this something that would be interesting for the mainline?
> Should I make patches against the 1.2 or 1.3 branches as well?

I think it would be interesting for mainline, but I don't see any need to
go back to prior versions (than the one we started with anyway). It's
possible other people may feel differently on that last point. :)

-- 
_Deirdre   *   http://www.sfknit.org   *   http://www.deirdre.net
"More damage has been caused by innocent program crashes than by 
malicious viruses, but they don't make great stories."
                   --  Jean-Louis Gassee, Be Newsletter, Issue 69