[XBoard-devel] gtk-branch

[Arun Persaud]

Hi

John is making great progress on the GTK branch...  so I thought this
might be a good time to think about new features that we want to have
for GTK and perhaps old features we want to retire, especially keeping
in mind that the goal of the GTK version is to be cross-platform and
will be a major change both for XBoard and Winboard users, so we should
take the opportunity to clean up or change things ;)

Here are some thing I can think of:

* Integrate ICS input box and add functionality: mostly copy the
functionality from Winboard. Perhaps we want to get rid of using the
terminal alltogether?

* Add theme support: Instead of specifying all the details on the
command line or the ini-file we could have a small xml file (or other
format like our own ini-file) where we specify the background images and
pieces. This way it would be easy to distribute different themes and it
would be easier for users to switch between different settings. The
theme could then just be a zip file which has to include a theme.ini
file and the svgs...

* Too many windows? At the moment XBoard can clutter the workspace with
tons of windows, perhaps we can reduce the number of windows used for
preferences and also include some other windows into the main window?
Perhaps use dockable windows to maintain the freedom to place the
windows where you want them?

* I'm also for using only scalable graphics for the pieces (e.g. svg)
and make the window scalable and get rid of all the size option for xboard.

* Do we want to think about adding the ability to open multiple game
windows for playing simul games or observing multiple games? I guess
this would mean a big change in the code, but this might be a good time
to add this?

* Better help menus: get rid of the info and man links and add links to
platform specific help files generated from the texinfo files.

just some ideas... feel free to add to it

As far as timeline goes:
In general I think that as soon as we can turn off all the X-code and
are able to cross-compile for windows, we should move master to gtk
and only do bugfix-releases for the 4.x.x branches. What do you think?

cheers
        ARUN