[winGRASS] libG11

[Glynn Clements]

Andreas Lange wrote:

> We have to decide if we want:
> - a NIVZ version working from the XFree86 Server (no idea if this is
> possible)

This should be perfectly viable now. I have compiled other
Unix/X11/OpenGL programs for Cygwin, with only minimal changes
required (e.g. #include directives).

> - a NIVZ version working for the native Windows API/OpenGL. But that
> will mean to make tcl/tk and togl compile with gcc and the native
> Windows API, which to my knowlegde no one did until now.
> 
> I don't think that it will be possible to compile wish, togl and NIVZ
> with the libG11 library. That will not work IMHO.  

IMHO, also.

For instance, the event handling code (which had to be changed to get
XCheckWindowEvent working) gets more complex once you have to allow
for subwindows (do_not_propagate_mask etc).

You may also run into conflicts between Cygwin and Windows
implementations of e.g. the ANSI C libraries.

> I had a partly working tcltkgrass with cygwish, I'll look if i find the
> tarball and send it. But there was a bunch of other problems related to
> the differences between cygwin and UNIX (e. g. missing /dev/null,
> xterm). This is not to refrain you from working on this, but we should
> not rise the expectations too high. 
> I would be interested in how we can adapt tcltkgrass without makeing two
> completely different version. This would make updating/fixing tcltkgrass
> very hard.

I would first look at getting tcltkgrass to work with the Windows
version of Tcl/Tk. Apart from avoiding any low-level issues, you would
end up with a more native look-and-feel.

The most likely complication would be with Windows vs Cygwin pathnames
(Tcl/Tk using the former, the GRASS commands using the latter).

> Generally i would personally prefer if we fix the known problems with
> the "winGRASS" port for XFree86/StarNet and publish GRASS5.0.0 ASAP.
> This would not hinder the libG11 porting, but we could publish a
> "product" in a reasonable timeframe. YMMV. 

I second that.

BTW, has anyone tried MI/X? It's not as nice as XWin-32, eXceed etc,
but it doesn't have the "nag-ware" limitations.

-- 
Glynn Clements <glynn.clements at virgin.net>