Re: PrefPanes for GNUstep

[M. Uli Kusterer]

In article <mailman.4839.1098543572.2017.discuss-gnustep@gnu.org>,
 Fred Kiefer <fredkiefer@gmx.de> wrote:

> I just compiled your framework with GNUstep (using the attached 
> makefile). This worked fine mostly, just a few small issues:
> - you included a file GSPreferencePane Kopie.h, which needs to be 
> renamed into GSPreferencePane.h

 Yeah, that's an annoying Finder bug... it always selects the original 
when copying a file, instead of the copy, which made me rename the wrong 
one..

> - some includes where missing (AppKit.h in GSPreferencePane.h, math.h in 
> GSSysPrefsAppDelegate.m)

 Thanks. I've added those includes. xCode uses a precompiled header by 
default. I'll try to turn that off in the future.

> - you use a constant for the location of the Preference panes, which in 
> did redefine for GNUstep to
> #define GS_SYS_PREFS_PATH             
> @"/usr/GNUstep/System/Library/PreferencePanes/"

 Yes, that was the intention for this release.

> For GNUstep we do prefer to determine such locations at runtime. Using 
> methods on NSBundle or functions like 
> NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains() would be prefered.

 It's definitely on the "to do" list if GSSystemPreferences is of 
interest to the GNUstep community. Though, looking at Preferences.app, 
I'm thinking maybe with a little work I could contribute my code to 
that. That would probably be better in the long term.

> - The way you find the bundle name and bundle icon (using names starting 
> with CF) wont work for GNUstep. I am actually not sure at the moment, 
> which names we use here.

 Those should just be keys in the Info.plist. Am I mistaken, or would it 
be possible to add keys with that name to the Info.plist of an app in 
GNUstep as well? It wouldn't matter if it was an ASCII plist instead of 
an XML plist, it's easy to convert between those on MacOS X, and both 
are supported. Could you elaborate what doesn't work? Or what keys I'd 
want to be using instead?

 CFBundleName is usually the default display name for an application on 
MacOS X, and CFBundleIconFile is the default name of the icon file. 
Though the latter is mainly a fallback. It seems Apple have some invalid 
PrefPanes that use CFBundleIconFile instead of NSPrefPanelIconFile. (I 
think that's so because CFBundleIconFile on MacOS X *should* be a .icns 
file, but it actually is a .tiff file in those PrefPanes)

 I think CFBundleName and NSPrefPanelIconFile should be taken over to 
GNUstep for PrefPanes.

> - as you did use NIB files you will need to convert them to gorm files 
> (going via gmodel). In the future we may be able to read NIB files 
> directly, but only when key value encoded.

 Yeah, I know. But as I said elsewhere, I have no working GNUstep, or I 
would have gmodeled them myself.

> Looks like there is nothing stopping you from using your preference 
> panel with GNUstep. As soon as the NIBs have been converted, it could

Thanks, good to know. I'll include the GNUMakefile in the fixed package. 
Thanks for creating it.

Cheers,
-- Uli
http://www.zathras.de