Re: GNUstep on MS Windows

[Hank Grabowski]

On Wed, 3 Dec 2003 20:00:12 +0100, Lars Sonchocky-Helldorf
<Lars.Sonchocky-Helldorf@bbdo-interone.de> wrote:
[snip]
>A lot of people I talked to miss the Windows native look and feel. 
>Currently GNUstep draws it's own Widgets. 
>

I personally love the way the NeXT interface looks.  I even tried
getting Stardock's themeing package to force Windows to work like
that, to no avail.  However the fact of the matter is that in order
for GNUstep to have appeal to developers targetting average users, the
base operating system look and feel is imperative.  This is especially
true on Windows systems.  Whether that's easier to do by wrapping
native widgets or by simulating the drawing of the native look and
feel I don't know.  Does anyone know how YellowBox, which did maintain
native Windows look and feel.  A neat review of YellowBox on Windows
can be found here:

http://mac.excaliburworld.com/rhapsody/yellow-windows.html

The second required thing will be a transparent installation and
runtime for end users.  That way the user has no idea that a GNUstep
application is any different from a regular application, in terms of
installation and running.  That part is very far down the road.
Having a stable GUI system should be the primary focus, regardless of
if it is drawing in NeXT style or Windows style.

My ideal vision for the future of GNUstep is for it to be the cross
platform development API that YellowBox was supposed to be.  Whether
that's a pipe dream or not remains to be seen.  

Later,
Hank