Re: new to gnustep/obj-c

[M. Grabert]

On Thu, 19 Sep 2002, Cameron Matheson wrote:

> 1. I was kind of hoping their would be an aqua-like interface to gnustep
> , i searched google and saw a old message to this list that said themes
> were being discussed... is that still going on?  I think that more
> people would flock to GNUStep if it was a little bit sexier (no offense
> to all you NEXTStep lovers, i use windowmaker and enjoy it, but the
> default NEXT colors are pretty bland, and some aqua-ish looking stuff
> would be beautiful).

Hehe.
We had this discussion several time before. The general consense is:
Yes, it would be nice - some time in the future (far far away?).
Fist AppKit needs to be implemented 100% before anything like this
will be on the task list, if it will ever become such an important issue.

If you want to implement an Aqua theme, go ahead and implement one
(and Apple will probably sue you). Right now there is some functionality
(proof-of-concept) that makes GNUstep a little bit themeable. But AFAIK
nobody picked up the idea and implemented own themes. There is obviously
not much demand, or nobody REALLY interested in creating themes.
I think it's a nice idea, and I think it's important to implement themes
if GNUstep wants to become as attractive to USERS (not developers) as
Gnome/KDE. But right now it's lacking applications and GNUstep is rather
far away to compete even anywhere near Gnome/KDE version 1 from a user's
point of view.

> 2. in the FAQ it says that apple has submitted patches to make gnu obj-c
> work w/ ojb-c++.  What's the status of those patches right now?  are
> they still in limbo, or have they been accepted/denied?

I don't know what the current status is, but S. Shebs (Apple) has created
a WORKING patch for linux (read the gcc mailing list of last month IIRC).
I also don't know exactly whether it will be in gcc-3.3, but it doesn't
seem so. gcc-3.3 is already in Stage3 (only bugfixes allowed), and AFAIK
the patches didn't get into gcc main yet.
I heard some rumors that it might get into gcc-3.4.

> 3.  what about font-aa?  Has this been considered/discussed?  It's not
> really that important to me, but it is nice to have IMHO.

If you use backart/libart then yes. the xdps and xgps backends don't take
advantage of Anti-Aliasing fonts AFAIK.

greetings max