Re: [gtk-win32] Let's start some discussion.

[Jerry Haltom <wasabi larvalstage net>]

> A package  for netbeans/eclipse for java gnome (with glade3 maybe?)
> would be a wonderful project. That's the kind of thing I would like to
> make easier to achieve.


Such a package would be easier if the base of Gtk was sanely packaged
itself. =)

> We have a problem here, I'm not about to spend my time using windows.
> It's a simple problem, my laptop doesn't have horspower enough to
> support an vmware with windows and I'm not about either work on
> building and packaging under windows or buy another workstation. I'm
> sorry, but if don't find a solution to create msi files under linux,
> I'm not about to work on it. 

Well, I can't really help you with this. But I do think it is sort of
endemic of the issue... if none of us run Windows, how are we to ever
produce software suitable for Windows?

> 
> I agree with you that .msi is the way to go but we need to find
> someone to work on the .msi packaging part.
> 
> I tried to learn how wix worked once, and it was so complicated that I
> gave up, and now I don't have resources to work with windows machines.
> Help here is much appreciated. I think that we should split the
> "building" and packaging part somehow, and put all the built files in
> one .tar.gz, instead of separate .zips, so other people can play with
> it and find better ways to package it for windows. That's all I can do
> for the moment. 

I completely agree. The build process can happen 100% on Linux. And
having properly "released" win32 .tar files will make the job of
producing ANY installation system easier.

> I'm about to make myself responsible of build and package (with linux
> tools) all the stack up to Gtk+. 
> That is, tar.gz, .zip, nsis and the like.

> You can have inconsistent builds then. And the building and packaging
> work is bigger, anyway, you already have
> the tml .zip files to work on this way. 
> 
> 
> 
>         Who would determine the name of the directory, and how would
>         we get
>         everybody to agree? 
>         
>         Can all resources fit into one directory structure? For
>         instance gtk
>         stock icons? Can we have different versions of Gtk putting
>         their stock
>         icons in the same directory?
>         
>         I don't really believe this idea is feasible. Unless every sub
>         directory 
>         and every file had a version number append to it, there would
>         be
>         conflicts.
>         
>         Another option, which has it's own issues, is to have each
>         library
>         maintain it's own root, and deal with the bugs that pop up.
>         For 
>         instance, install gtk, pango, and glib into a set of
>         directories like:
>         
>         Common Files\gtk\2.10
>         Common Files\pango\1.16
>         Common Files\glib\2.12
> 
> Too complicated. 
> 
> 
>         This is certainly the easiest way to deal with simple file
>         conflicts,
> 
> Nope, you can have pango releases with cairo, or withoth cairo, with
> freetype, without freetype. This would lead in inconsistences. The Gtk
> + releases should be "atomic" with the whole. 

I don't know if I totally agree with that. That's not really how it's
done on Linux. I guess I'd be mostly worried about developers getting
confused between OUR version of Cairo, and somebody else's. Probably a
minor concern.

> I can compile and prepare everything so you only need to do
> the  .msi/.msm  thing. 

If this is truly the case, I will be willing to do this. My biggest
problem was understanding the build system of all of the software enough
to even get to this stage. A Windows developer does not grow up around
make files, autoconf and MinGW.