[Mono-list] Why GTK#?

[Jonathan Pryor]

There are several reasons for this.

First of all, Gtk+ and Qt are standard toolkits on Linux, and their
proponents want to use their favorite toolkits when writing
applications.

Possibly related to this is the idea that Windows.Forms is brain-dead in
certain areas, such as internationalization.  Windows.Forms uses
explicit sizes for all controls, as opposed to Gtk+ and Qt which use a
box/packing model, which can better deal with the different string
lengths different languages will have.

Next is compatibility.  It is not possible to implement Windows.Forms on
top of Gtk+/Qt and have 100% compatibility, because Windows.Forms
exposes *lots* of Win32-isms, such as the Win32 message loop.  In order
to maintain compatibility, Wine must be used, and this is being done.

However, Wine apps don't currently fit in -- visually -- with Gtk+ or Qt
apps.

Those, AFAIK, are the primary reasons.  People don't like the
Windows.Forms API, and using it would limit us to using Wine under
Linux.

As for SharpDevelop, I have no idea when that'll be complete.  Last I
heard they were porting SWT (the Ecplipse toolkit from IBM) to C#, after
which they'll re-write SharpDevelop to use SWT.

 - Jon

On Tue, 2003-04-22 at 10:41, Maurizio Colucci wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I've been reading about mono for days, and still I don't understand
> the need for GTK# and QT#, as opposed to windows forms.
> 
> Why not just port Windows Forms and call GTK+ or QT under the hood,
> just for the rendering?
> 
> PS: I am looking forward to see SharpDevelop run on linux (without
> wine). When will this happen?
> 
> Thanks for elucidations,
> 
> Maurizio
> 
> 
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