Cygwin.dll and win32 stuff

Cygwin.dll and win32 stuff

[David Bierbaum]

Does anyone know where I can find some documentation on the Cygnus Win32
stuff that comes with GNAT 3.09?  I must be looking in all the wrong places
8^D

Also, is there a sort of generic package for GUI's, so one could do similar
operations, like opening a window, from Windows, XWindows, or the Mac?  I'm
a newby, and would appreciate any info you have on these questions.

Re: Cygwin.dll and win32 stuff

[Stephen Leake]

documentation for Cygnus Win32 stuff is at:

http://www.cygnus.com/misc/gnu-win32/
-- 
- Stephe

Re: Cygwin.dll and win32 stuff

[Robert Dewar]

David says

<<Does anyone know where I can find some documentation on the Cygnus Win32
stuff that comes with GNAT 3.09?  I must be looking in all the wrong places>>

The obvious place is the cygnus site, that's where this "stuff" comes from!

Re: Cygwin.dll and win32 stuff

[Nick Roberts]

David Bierbaum <elbier@ezl.com> wrote in article
<01bc33be$d9e1fbc0$3f2b18ce@elbier.ezl.com>...
> Does anyone know where I can find some documentation on the Cygnus Win32
> stuff that comes with GNAT 3.09?  I must be looking in all the wrong
places
> 8^D
> 
> Also, is there a sort of generic package for GUI's, so one could do
similar
> operations, like opening a window, from Windows, XWindows, or the Mac? 
I'm
> a newby, and would appreciate any info you have on these questions.
> 

For simple windowing operations, this may be possible, but for anything
vaguely complex/serious/commercial, the problem is that there are too many
fundamental differences between different windowing systems. There will
always be some facilities in one which will have no kind equivalent at all
in another. For example, there is a call in Windows to pop up a system
modal dialog box, which is useful occasionally (trust me!). In X-Windows:
no way! There is literally no way to do this in X-Windows. Point made I
think.

Nick

Re: Cygwin.dll and win32 stuff

[Robert Dewar]

Nick said

<<For simple windowing operations, this may be possible, but for anything
vaguely complex/serious/commercial, the problem is that there are too many
fundamental differences between different windowing systems.>>

This is way too pessimistic. In fact there are a number of attractive
commercial offerings that do a pretty good job of solving this problem,
and there are many complex/serious/commercial applications that make
use of these approaches. Yes, they are not ideal, but they are quite
adequate for creating practical cross-platform applications.

Re: Cygwin.dll and win32 stuff - windowing portability

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <dewar.859166546@merv>, dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
> Nick said
> 
> <<For simple windowing operations, this may be possible, but for anything
> vaguely complex/serious/commercial, the problem is that there are too many
> fundamental differences between different windowing systems.>>
> 
> This is way too pessimistic. In fact there are a number of attractive
> commercial offerings that do a pretty good job of solving this problem,
> and there are many complex/serious/commercial applications that make
> use of these approaches. Yes, they are not ideal, but they are quite
> adequate for creating practical cross-platform applications.

It really depends on the degree of compliance to platform standards
required by your customer base.  For producing a Macintosh program
which is "recordable" I know of only one framework which provides
appropriate support, and it is not at all a multi-platform framework.

There is some movement trying to make "recordability" a "checklist"
feature when purchasing Macintosh software.  If the typical customer
for your application domain has adopted this attitude they will not
be satisfied by less.

Larry Kilgallen

Re: Cygwin.dll and win32 stuff - windowing portability

[Robert Dewar]

Larry said

<<There is some movement trying to make "recordability" a "checklist"
feature when purchasing Macintosh software.  If the typical customer
for your application domain has adopted this attitude they will not
be satisfied by less.>>

Sure I understand this, but realistically, it is going to be more and
more the case that the *only* way that applications will arrive on the
Mac is in some reasonably portable cross-platform form. We have all seen
the trend of developers being reluctant to invest much special effort
on the Mac, and that trend is pretty much bound to continue I fear!

Re: Cygwin.dll and win32 stuff - windowing portability

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <dewar.859218547@merv>, dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
> Larry said
> 
> <<There is some movement trying to make "recordability" a "checklist"
> feature when purchasing Macintosh software.  If the typical customer
> for your application domain has adopted this attitude they will not
> be satisfied by less.>>
> 
> Sure I understand this, but realistically, it is going to be more and
> more the case that the *only* way that applications will arrive on the
> Mac is in some reasonably portable cross-platform form. We have all seen
> the trend of developers being reluctant to invest much special effort
> on the Mac, and that trend is pretty much bound to continue I fear!

Although I disagree with that, it is immaterial.  If I knew as much
about OS/2 as I do about the Macintosh, I could probably come up with
some equally non-portable concept.  As for X-Windows, consider the new
CDE support for preserving windowing system state on logout.  There are
other GUI environments which lack such a concept.  How many present
cross-GUI tools support that feature?

Larry