Re: Library, Bundle or ...

[Richard Frith-Macdonald]

On 5 Jan 2007, at 18:29, Philippe Roussel wrote:

> Hi all
>
> As a experiment I'm trying to an agenda application with GNUstep. It
> would be build around specific widgets like this one :
>
> ftp://coyote.octets.fr/calendar.png
>
> I think it would be nice for those widgets to be usable from other
> applications. What should I do to make that possible, in a good
> GNUstep way ? Build a Library ? What is a Bundle exactly ?

A bundle is a directory which may contain a dynamic library and  
associated resource files ... in  a format such that it can be loaded  
into an application at runtime  using the NSBundle class.

Probably the ideal way to make widgets available is in a palette  
though.  This is a special bundle with extra support to allow its  
contents to be used from within Gorm.  Creating a palette for you  
widgets allows people to use them by dragging them onto their  
application windows in Gorm and graphically positioning/resizing them  
to suite their application.

So the ideal way to do this is in stages ...

If your widgets have no resources (eg image files), you can first  
build a library, but if they use resource files you should probably  
start by building a bundle.  In fact it's probably good to build a  
bundle even if there are no resource files used ... as a bundle does  
not have to be linked into applications at compile time in order to  
be usable.

Then, once your bundle is working, make a palette for your widgets so  
that they can be used in Gorm (I'm sure Gregory Casamento can give  
you details on how to do this) ... then you can use Gorm to rapidly/ 
easily design/modify the user interface of your agenda application.   
The ease of editing your application's user interface will repay the  
extra effort you took to put the widgets in a palette.