[gcompris-devel] Re: [update] Maze-plugin

[Christof Petig]

Bruno Coudoin wrote:
>>To be honest I'd been dragged away by porting applications to gtk2.
>>
> 
> So you are our gtk2 expert ;)
> Do you have an idea of how hard will it be to port gcompris to gtk2.
> Frankly, I tried but failed to display the initial gcompris window !!

Hmmm. Depends ...

For me getting the program to compile again was hard, then I was done.

My initial gtk2 experience:
- a lot of arguments are now const correct, so that cleaning up the mess 
is a good idea (I can explain more, C users tend to ignore const, C++ 
users _need_ to understand it (const and non const arguments form 
different(!) functions)).
- a lot of things are now easier, cleaner etc. e.g. case insensitive 
completion was impossible with glib 1.2
- the transfer of the signal system and the object hierarchy into glib2 
made things more portable but you need to do some search and replace in 
your code
- you need to switch to UTF8, which is a good idea anyway, but hard if 
you rely on editors which are not UTF8 capable
- you won't regret porting ;-)
But antialiasing, better widgets, stock icons, pixbuf integration were 
already possible with gnome1 or are not used in gcompris, so gcompris 
won't initially gain that much from gtk2.

But: I usually code in C++ (with gtkmm[2]), so I don't know too much of 
pure Gtk2.

    Christof

PS: IIRC gcompris depends on gnome1. Though since gtk2 provides 
gdk-pixbuf, stock items etc. you might not need too much of gnome2 any 
longer?

And since gtk2 is available for Windows (I also have some experience in 
this area, but so far only gtk1) a port of gcompris to windows might be 
possible. I know someone currently porting dia to Windows ...