* Mono, anyone? @ 2003-11-18 18:42 Lincoln Peters 2003-11-18 21:01 ` Brandon J. Van Every 2003-11-18 21:22 ` Eric McDonald 0 siblings, 2 replies; 6+ messages in thread From: Lincoln Peters @ 2003-11-18 18:42 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Xconq list Has anyone considered taking advantage of Ximian's (Novell's?) Mono project? I remember seeing a presentation on Mono by Miguel de Icaza at LinuxWorld in San Francisco last year, and it sounded like it would allow us to do some interesting things. For example: * Allow Xconq to talk to a other application. This may initially sound silly, but imagine how much easier it might be to play games such as bellum.g if you could use a spreadsheet to represent various aspects of your empire (particularly such things as supply of 'c') using charts. It might not be quite so bad for Xconq to behave (to some extent) like an office application. * Write different parts of Xconq in different languages. This might make it easier to add scripting capability to Xconq (it might even make it possible for Xconq to support all the scripting languages that have been discussed so far). * Make it easier to support all of the platforms that Xconq is supposed to run on. I don't know how well compatibility between Mono and Microsoft's .NET framework stands, and it wouldn't really surprise me if Microsoft changed .NET to make Mono incompatible. However, I imagine that, even if Microsoft pulled the plug, that Mono would still be a useful tool for the reasons I listed above. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
* RE: Mono, anyone? 2003-11-18 18:42 Mono, anyone? Lincoln Peters @ 2003-11-18 21:01 ` Brandon J. Van Every 2003-11-18 21:28 ` Lincoln Peters 2003-11-18 21:22 ` Eric McDonald 1 sibling, 1 reply; 6+ messages in thread From: Brandon J. Van Every @ 2003-11-18 21:01 UTC (permalink / raw) To: xconq Lincoln Peters wrote: > > Has anyone considered taking advantage of Ximian's (Novell's?) Mono > project? Have you? I can think of a zillion things Xconq *could* have in it... but I concentrate on the ones I'm fully willing to implement myself. No harm in asking if someone else is also interested in Mono, but my point is you have to be the one to lead the effort for that sort of thing. > * Allow Xconq to talk to a other application. This may > initially sound > silly, but imagine how much easier it might be to play games such as > bellum.g if you could use a spreadsheet to represent various > aspects of > your empire (particularly such things as supply of 'c') using charts. > It might not be quite so bad for Xconq to behave (to some extent) like > an office application. What I *have* considered, is writing the Windows UI in C# and .NET. I'm a .NET nunce, I don't know what its GUI features are. Maybe it has some kind of applicable "spreadsheet form." Thanks for reminding me that right-click popups won't solve all UI problems, I'll need a National Budget screen somewhere. If I go the C# .NET route, then I'll simply leave it to others to worry about porting it to Mono. But one thing I've discovered, that I didn't realize before, is that C# is not exactly a good language for interoping with C directly. You have to create DLLs and do all this marshalling stuff, it's a tedious function-by-function job. Either that or wrap stuff up in Managed C++. Neither would be so bad if the C was legacy code awaiting conversion to something more modern, but I expect it will be a live target for some time. I have no interest in chasing the C coders' tails with my manual labor. So today, I'm looking at Python / C interop. Possibly a "make this more OO" effort needs to precede C# .NET efforts. Once I have a higher level construct summarizing the Xconq interactions, use that to bridge to C#. NET. This is like the idea of wrapping stuff up with Managed C++, except I'm wrapping stuff up with Python. And then accepting possibly some more difficulty implementing the interop bridge. Or there's Door #3: finding a Python GUI that has the right-click popup and spreadsheet tables I need. Another thing I'll be looking at today. But my concern is there's probably no RAD tool at the same level of quality as C# .NET in the Python world. I want to bang out GUIs quickly, not futz manually. Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA 20% of the world is real. 80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
* RE: Mono, anyone? 2003-11-18 21:01 ` Brandon J. Van Every @ 2003-11-18 21:28 ` Lincoln Peters 2003-11-19 0:22 ` Eric McDonald 0 siblings, 1 reply; 6+ messages in thread From: Lincoln Peters @ 2003-11-18 21:28 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Brandon J. Van Every; +Cc: Xconq list On Tue, 2003-11-18 at 12:56, Brandon J. Van Every wrote: > Lincoln Peters wrote: > > > > Has anyone considered taking advantage of Ximian's (Novell's?) Mono > > project? > > Have you? I can think of a zillion things Xconq *could* have in it... > but I concentrate on the ones I'm fully willing to implement myself. No > harm in asking if someone else is also interested in Mono, but my point > is you have to be the one to lead the effort for that sort of thing. There are only a few things I clearly remember about Mono. One was that, during the presentation, Miguel de Icaza used some kind of CGI script via a web browser to interact with Gnumeric (which was running on another part of the screen). > > > * Allow Xconq to talk to a other application. This may > > initially sound > > silly, but imagine how much easier it might be to play games such as > > bellum.g if you could use a spreadsheet to represent various > > aspects of > > your empire (particularly such things as supply of 'c') using charts. > > It might not be quite so bad for Xconq to behave (to some extent) like > > an office application. > > What I *have* considered, is writing the Windows UI in C# and .NET. I'm > a .NET nunce, I don't know what its GUI features are. Maybe it has some > kind of applicable "spreadsheet form." Thanks for reminding me that > right-click popups won't solve all UI problems, I'll need a National > Budget screen somewhere. As I recall, the .NET UI is not significantly different from the traditional Windows UI. Although I recall him saying that it was rather frustrating, because it doesn't work as well as the widget trees used by GTK+ and GNOME (which can re-size and re-position themselves on their own when needed). While there is a GTK+ widget to reproduce the style of Windows (widgets on a static grid), I don't think that the reverse is true. Maybe I'll have to dig through Ximian's website and try to figure out how he did that Gnumeric trick. It might save a lot of code when you try to create a National Budget screen. > > If I go the C# .NET route, then I'll simply leave it to others to worry > about porting it to Mono. But one thing I've discovered, that I didn't > realize before, is that C# is not exactly a good language for interoping > with C directly. You have to create DLLs and do all this marshalling > stuff, it's a tedious function-by-function job. Either that or wrap > stuff up in Managed C++. Neither would be so bad if the C was legacy > code awaiting conversion to something more modern, but I expect it will > be a live target for some time. I have no interest in chasing the C > coders' tails with my manual labor. My understanding was that if a C# .NET application compiles and runs on Windows, it should work immediately using Mono on Linux (sort of like Java). Although the UI might be tricky, for the reasons I mentioned above. > > So today, I'm looking at Python / C interop. Possibly a "make this more > OO" effort needs to precede C# .NET efforts. Once I have a higher level > construct summarizing the Xconq interactions, use that to bridge to C#. > NET. This is like the idea of wrapping stuff up with Managed C++, > except I'm wrapping stuff up with Python. And then accepting possibly > some more difficulty implementing the interop bridge. You're probably right. I know that, if I wanted to make any significant changes to the Xconq code base, I would want to write OO code, probably in C++ rather than C (for obvious reasons). And I remember that someone was able to successfully compile Xconq as a C++ program a while ago. Does anyone know if that still works? > > Or there's Door #3: finding a Python GUI that has the right-click popup > and spreadsheet tables I need. Another thing I'll be looking at today. > But my concern is there's probably no RAD tool at the same level of > quality as C# .NET in the Python world. I want to bang out GUIs > quickly, not futz manually. There is probably a way, using the .NET developer tools (which I assume you have), to make the Windows version of Xconq talk to Microsoft Excel, thereby allowing Excel to do all of the spreadsheet things. Hopefully, it would be just as easy to make it also work with Gnumeric. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
* RE: Mono, anyone? 2003-11-18 21:28 ` Lincoln Peters @ 2003-11-19 0:22 ` Eric McDonald 0 siblings, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread From: Eric McDonald @ 2003-11-19 0:22 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Lincoln Peters; +Cc: Xconq list On Tue, 18 Nov 2003, Lincoln Peters wrote: > changes to the Xconq code base, I would want to write OO code, probably > in C++ rather than C (for obvious reasons). And I remember that someone > was able to successfully compile Xconq as a C++ program a while ago. > Does anyone know if that still works? Yes. I did it with g++ last week. There was a small issue with sys/time.h not being wrapped in extern "C" which caused some link-time troubles. I am committing a fix for that tonight, among other things.... I believe Hans has also built it as a C++ app recently, perhaps with CodeWarrior. However, Xconq is still at a C89 compliance level. Hence my recent efforts to provide a substitute snprintf implementation.... Eric ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
* Re: Mono, anyone? 2003-11-18 18:42 Mono, anyone? Lincoln Peters 2003-11-18 21:01 ` Brandon J. Van Every @ 2003-11-18 21:22 ` Eric McDonald 2003-11-18 21:47 ` Lincoln Peters 1 sibling, 1 reply; 6+ messages in thread From: Eric McDonald @ 2003-11-18 21:22 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Lincoln Peters; +Cc: Xconq list Hi Lincoln, On Tue, 18 Nov 2003, Lincoln Peters wrote: > * Allow Xconq to talk to a other application. This may initially sound > silly, but imagine how much easier it might be to play games such as > bellum.g if you could use a spreadsheet to represent various aspects of > your empire (particularly such things as supply of 'c') using charts. This sounds like a good idea. Gnome (and I think Qt, as well) has an embedded object architecture, iirc. And, of course, Microsoft does, so one could instantiate a MSExcel object within Xconq, for instance. But as a cross-platform solution goes, I would have to look; maybe the Ximian stuff is such; I will look at it. > It might not be quite so bad for Xconq to behave (to some extent) like > an office application. As long as Xconq Office does not have any annoying office assistants, such as Clippy, the Ammo Clip. Eric ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
* Re: Mono, anyone? 2003-11-18 21:22 ` Eric McDonald @ 2003-11-18 21:47 ` Lincoln Peters 0 siblings, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread From: Lincoln Peters @ 2003-11-18 21:47 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Eric McDonald; +Cc: Xconq list On Tue, 2003-11-18 at 13:01, Eric McDonald wrote: > Hi Lincoln, > > On Tue, 18 Nov 2003, Lincoln Peters wrote: > > > * Allow Xconq to talk to a other application. This may initially sound > > silly, but imagine how much easier it might be to play games such as > > bellum.g if you could use a spreadsheet to represent various aspects of > > your empire (particularly such things as supply of 'c') using charts. > > This sounds like a good idea. Gnome (and I think Qt, as well) has > an embedded object architecture, iirc. And, of course, Microsoft > does, so one could instantiate a MSExcel object within Xconq, for > instance. But as a cross-platform solution goes, I would have to > look; maybe the Ximian stuff is such; I will look at it. I didn't get a chance to attend LinuxWorld in San Francisco this year, but it sounds as if Ximian is still going strong on this project (I heard that Mono received some kind of award, something like "#1 open source project of the year"). And I expect that if they reasonably* can, they'll use the same protocols as Microsoft applications, so that you could just as easily embed MS Excel into Xconq as you might embed Gnumeric. * It's a totally different story if Microsoft refuses to disclose the protocols, the protocols contains myriad security holes, or it is grossly inefficient. > > > It might not be quite so bad for Xconq to behave (to some extent) like > > an office application. > > As long as Xconq Office does not have any annoying office > assistants, such as Clippy, the Ammo Clip. Although I suppose that, in some games, it might be interesting to have a comparable assistant. Perhaps Julius the military adviser could offer free advice to those who play roman.g. But I think we can all agree that, if such a thing is to ever be implemented, it should be manually enabled and set up by the game module and easily turned off by the player. Of course, it would open the door for a new generation of incredibly annoying game modules ("You are about to send 1 infantry against 3 legions. Its chance of survival is 15%. Do you want to proceed?"). ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2003-11-18 21:47 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 6+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 2003-11-18 18:42 Mono, anyone? Lincoln Peters 2003-11-18 21:01 ` Brandon J. Van Every 2003-11-18 21:28 ` Lincoln Peters 2003-11-19 0:22 ` Eric McDonald 2003-11-18 21:22 ` Eric McDonald 2003-11-18 21:47 ` Lincoln Peters
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