[Skencil-devel] Revitalising Skencil

[Igor Novikov]

On Sat, Nov 20, 2010 at 2:56 AM, Igor Novikov <igor.e.novikov at gmail.com>wrote:

>
>
> On Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 3:25 PM, Bernhard Reiter <bernhard at intevation.de>wrote:
>
>> Am Dienstag, 9. November 2010 04:03:38 schrieb Igor Novikov:
>> > So on first milestone we just
>> > announce a project rebirth
>>
>> Yes, this is wonderful!
>>
>> > but on next step we should selecting a correct
>> > strategy for further project development.
>>
>> > On my opinion Skencil has potential marketplace as a small, fast and
>> > lightweight editor only.
>>
>> I agree that can be a viable marketplace.
>>
>> > Porting on Gtk widgetset is more preferable because:
>>
>> I slightly tend to disagree, but of course this is open for discussion and
>> the
>> people doing the work have a higher weight than me. I'd rather have a GTK
>> Skencil then no Skencil. ;)
>>
>> > 1.Most popular distros (Ubuntu & Mint) use GNOME as desktop environment.
>>
>> But Qt applications already run fine there.
>>
>> > 2.Gtk widgetset provides extra fast application start in GNOME DE (it's
>> > important for lightweight editor)
>>
>> Qt can be quite lightweight and it as a very good reputation on embedded
>> system and good backing of large corporations (Nokia).
>>
>> > 3.C language based Gtk is closer to Python native extensions than C++
>> based
>> > Qt.
>>
>> Python is more object oriented, this usually fits Qt well.
>>
>> > 4.This way simplifies win32 porting. Actually even for win32 simple
>> vector
>> > graphics editor is also usefult.
>>
>> Qt has better support on windows32api than GTK as far as I know.
>>
>>
> Concerning Qt way I think you are right. I have took a look on current pyqt
> and found
> that it seems the binding is more powerful than pygtk. At least this issue
> should be tested on
> sample application under linux, win32/64 an macosx platforms. If we will
> choice Qt way we should
> skip cairo and use QPainter renderer. As a final result we could get
> application with OpenGL
> renderer (QGLWidget). The mostly interested issue is a macosx version,
> because pygtk and
> cairo have a bad support for this platform.
>
>
> --
> Regards,
>
> Igor Novikov
> sK1 Project
> http://sk1project.org
>
>
>
After some deliberation, we concluded that it makes sense to support
bothGtk and Qt versions.

Gtk port is an easy way as for sK1 and for Skencil, because GtkDrawingArea
is closer to
Skencil Canvas and adopted for sK1 Cairo renderer. Also Gtk application is
more preferable
for Ubuntu. According to sK1 download statistics Ubuntu packages are most
popular, ~50 times more
than packages for other distros.

But Qt application is better for windows and macosx due to excellent qt4
system integration. Unfortunately
qt porting requires to rewrite renderer completely not UI elements only. To
avoid development freeze like
for Skencil 0.7 branch, we are going to port sK1 on Gtk widgetset and after
that start Qt porting.
I think the same pattern is suitable for Skencil also. Skencil UI is simple
so dual widgetset UI support will not
be a complex task. Of course this way is more complex for custom extensions,
because authors should support
both versions.

-- 
Regards,

Igor Novikov
sK1 Project
http://sk1project.org
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