Re: [Texmacs-dev] Win32 Experimental Version

[Dan Martens]

--

On Thu, 3 Apr 2003 12:43:20   
 david wrote:
>Nice to see that things are progressing on the win32 front. By
>attacking the enemy on multiple fronts we are increasing our chances
>at successful world domination :-)

Definetly.
>
>On Wed, Apr 02, 2003 at 01:55:34PM -0400, Dan Martens wrote:
>> It should most likely work on Windows 9X, however, in my experience,
>> there are minor API changes in the Win32 layer between 9X and NT.
>> This may cause exceptions or seg faults when running. Most calls
>> used in TeXmacs however are graphics primitives, which are pretty
>> much standard between versions. Windows 9X are horrific operating
>> systems and are very unstable at best. Most people have switched to
>> XP by now, which is quite a good operating system.
>
>FYI, winXP and winNT are mostly IBM's OS/2 with added MS cruft. That
>explains that MS engineers seem to have suddently become compentent at
>OS design :-P

Actually, when creating the NT platform, windows stole a bunch of ex Unix 
kernel engineers.  While the API to the kernel is not the same, you can 
definetly notice some Unix characteristics of NT. As for OS/2, I was unaware 
that they are similar as I have only used OS/2 a few times in my life.  I don't 
know about Europe, but it is extremely rare to find an OS/2 system aside from 
some IBM products and servers (which are mostly linux based now anyways).

>
>> I did write some code for profile handling on 9X systems, so that
>> should port over easily as well. If anyone has run this on 9X,
>> please let me know.
>
>I am going to get a PC with a win2k license (I plan to run it on top
>of VMware). Is win2k a brand of win9x or of winNT?

Win9x (98, 95 and ME) are all the same OS aside from cosmetic changes.  Win2k 
is actually (unoffically) NT 5.0 and consisted of a complete overhaul of the NT 
kernel.  They did a very nice job too I might add.  I run Win2k at home myself, 
and I have nothing but good things to say about it.  Very stable and solid.  XP 
is a little to "cartoon like" for me.

>
>
>> CVS is not really necessary as I have my own source control
>> implemented here. I would prefer to be the only one with access to
>> the X layer source right now as well until I get more bugs sorted
>> out. It would make it far too confusing if other developers were
>> writing code in the X layer.
>
>I would like to know if there is any free (as in GNU) "intelligent"
>version control system around?

I have no idea, as I use visual sourcesafe for all my code. 

>
>I had a recent discussion which convinced me that CVS (or Subversion)
>is too rigid to handle the development of the TeXmacs mainstream. But
>RMS will probably bust our head off if we start using BitKeeper (and
>personnaly, I would not like it very much).
>
>
>> Yes, MikeTeX is huge. It can be seperated quite easily from the
>> windows version. All that was changed to this was some of the
>> calling conventions to makepk and maketfm.
>
>Maybe you got some insight which may explain the problem ppl are
>experiencing with the font generation of TeXmacs?

Well, the main problem I found when I was looking in the fonts was only in the 
calling convention differences between MikTeX and TeTeX.  As well, MikTeX did 
not understand the "localfont" directory.  I instead put all built fonts into 
the TeXmacs font directory.

>
>One some systems, the fonts are not found, and on other systems the
>.pk are generated in the current directory. I suspect that TeXmacs
>does not interface very cleanly with METAFONT.
>
>
>> Please do, and let me know what you think. It may not run very well
>> on slower computers, as the graphics are a little choppy. This is
>> due to 2 factors. 1) The X Emulation layer has to mimic the X event
>> system. Due to some inherent problems with Windows messaging
>> procedures, this can slow down the program at times of heavy
>> messages.
>> 2) All texmacs widgets are natively drawn, and do not use standard
>> windows widgets. In the future, a REAL windows version may be
>> desired, or a port to GTK.
>
>I hope we will be able to do so.
>
>The plan would be to use some free library as a wrapper around the MFC
>mess, because no-one enjoys maintaining MFC-bound code.
>
>We have considered various solutions and it did not seem possible to
>find a library which is portable (not Qt, because of licensing),
>flexible enough (not wxWindows according to Joris) and provide native
>look and feel (not GTK).

Well, I have the solution then.  My X layer provides complete native look and 
feel to TeXmacs, without any licensing.  It really has come along way.  
As for MFC issue, the only MFC I encorporated into the X layer is the MFC 
hashtable (CMapPtrToPtr) which I like for it's ease of use.  As for that, all 
written in Win32 GDI calls.  This also provides considerable speedup compared 
to MFC.

Dan
>
>                                                            -- DDAA
>
>
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