[Mono-list] Buggy Windows.Forms

[Nikki Locke]

Robert Jordan wrote:
> Nikki Locke wrote: 
> > I am a late arrival to a project trying to do serious work with Mono. It 
> > has been accepted since before I arrived that Mono's Windows.Forms was 
> > buggy, and its use should be kept to a minimum. 
>  
> SWF is under heavy development. Therefore, the developer who arrived 
> is using SVN head :-) 

That's good news - I guess things will improve rapidly then.

> > Therefore, the application has a single Canvas on which it does all its 
> > GUI. Windows.Forms is only used to get keyboard and paint messages. 
> > 
> > Recently we have discovered that Application.Exit doesn't always exit - the 
> > window goes away, but mono doesn't terminate. As this is a critical 
> > application which must be restarted immediately if it exits, this is the 
> > last straw. 
>  
> Try Environment.Exit. Additionally, you may debug the application 
> like described here: http://www.mono-project.com/Debugging 

Thanks - we're doing that (but it was making us uncomfortable, along with all 
the other problems we are getting).

> > I have been asked to look into the possibility of doing away with 
> > Windows.Forms altogether. 
> > 
> > Windows.Forms is clearly an interface between the application and GTK. 
> > Would it be reasonably easy to bypass Windows.Forms, and use the existing 
> > GTK interface instead? 
>  
> SWF is not based on GTK. 

Ah, I see. Is it based on anything I can usefully get at?

> Anyhow, here you go: http://www.mono-project.com/GtkSharp 

Thanks again. Will discuss this with the boss.

I must say, Mono may have more obvious bugs than .NET, but it has a _very_ 
helpful developer community!

-- 
Nikki Locke, Trumphurst Ltd.      PC & Unix consultancy & programming
http://www.trumphurst.com/