Re: Platform Independent vs. Platform Specific Behavior (was: Re: [libreoffice-design] Take inspiration from Lotus Symphony ?)

On Thu, 2011-04-28 at 20:49 +0200, RGB ES wrote:

> Indeed. Correct me if I'm wrong (my technical background in not deep
> enough) but I think the problem is that OOo/LibO is using some archaic
> (and arcane) set of libraries to draw its UI called VCL, that no one
> else use. 

Yes.  This is correct.  Its design is sooooo 20th century, to put it
mildly.

> As a matter of fact, OOo/LibO is NOT a GTK app, but a VCL
> app that can connect to GTK or Qt libraries through "VCL plugins".(1)

Yup.  The plugins do the actual drawing while VCL defines what to draw
and where etc.  But because 

> Switching to a more modern set of libraries will easy the task of
> desktop integration preserving at the same time its own layout.
> But as always, writing the word "switching" is a lot easier that the
> switch itself.

Yes.  Different approaches are taken by different cross-platform apps,
and there is no one best approach to this cross-platform GUI situation
(as Christoph hinted earlier).

> (1) Chakra project recently published a LibO version 100% GTK free:
> http://chakra-project.org/news/index.php?/archives/175-LibreOffice-available-for-testing-Be-free.html

Interesting.  BTW, building LibO without GTK dependency should be
possible by simply setting the right build option (in theory).  So,
anyone who can build it can try it.  The core of LibO does not depend on
the GTK libraries the last I checked.

Kohei

-- 
Kohei Yoshida, LibreOffice hacker, Calc
<kyoshida@novell.com>


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