RE: New (Delphi) xlauncher

["Harold Hunt" <huntharo at msu dot edu>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cygwin-xfree-owner@cygwin.com
> [mailto:cygwin-xfree-owner@cygwin.com]On Behalf Of Tim Thomson
> Sent: Sunday, July 21, 2002 9:41 PM
> To: cygwin-xfree Mailing List
> Subject: New (Delphi) xlauncher
>
>
> Hi there,
>
> To those of you interested in the progress of my xlauncher program(s), I
> have added some more features to the Delphi version. These include
> storing and retrieving configuration sessions to and from the registry,
> multiple font path, or font server specification, and better support for
> -from parameter, it now uses your IP, instead of name. If it can't find
> an IP address, it doesn't provide the parameter to XWin.exe.
>
> It is available at http://xlauncher.sourceforge.net
>

Fair enough.

> I'm still not sure where to head with the non-delphi version. I have
> some options, but all have disadvantages:
>
> libW11 doesn't look like it will do everything I need without the use of
> more libraries, ie xforms or gtk.
>

Whoever suggested libW11 was smoking some great crack.  libW11 is by no
means a complete API.  I'll just forget that this was ever mentioned.  (I'm
not complaining to you, I'm just complaining)

> gtk isn't stable enough yet?
>
> wxWindows - a _lot_ like MFC, but cross-platform. Would need to be made
> into a cygwin package. Would be the easiest to rewrite the delphi app
> in.
>
> win32api isn't very cross platform. Could use wine to port it to
> unix/linux?
>
> I'll look at how hard it would be to build wxWindows dll for cygwin, if
> that works well, I may use it, otherwise win32api may be the way,
> although pretty much eliminates a cross platform approach.
>

I am getting seriously confused here.  Why are you so excited about making
this a cross-platform application?  Cite me one example of someone that
would need this program to be cross platform.

Think about it: you are creating a graphical application that launches a
graphical windowing system.  Therefore, you have to already have a graphical
windowing system of some form running.  At last count, that means that you
are running either Windows, Mac OS X, OS/2, or maybe BeOS.  You certainly
can't be running on any platform that uses X11 as the graphical windowing
system, because you would have to have X11 running in order to launch X11
via your launcher.

Now, the Mac OS X folks have lots of neat ways that their server is already
tied into the Mac OS X-specific startup methods and such.  Supporting BeOS
would be a silly academic waste of effort.  OS/2 is similar, but good luck
finding a cross-platform toolkit that includes OS/2 support.

So, what are your real targets here?  Have I missed some operating system
that also needs an X launcher utility?

Harold