[MonoDevelop] Scintilla over GtkSourceView

[Mike Krüger]

Hi

> There are a few reasons we want to get the GTK+ buffer wrapped. If you
> have not read my blog already, please do, it is a great introduction
to
> this. However, let me give it in short here:
> 
>       * With GtkSourceView, the buffer *feels* like all other buffers
on
>         the desktop. The *standard* gtk+ text view widget alone
consists
>         of over 15k lines of carefully tuned code. This is just for
>         non-syntaxhighlighting, standard editing. It takes care of
>         subtle problems such as i18n, a10y, l10n, (did i get my
numbers
>         right ;-), drag and drop inside the buffer, font layout, and
>         other things i cant think of. In addition, GtkSourceView is
more
>         thousands of lines that take care of subtle invalidation
cases,
>         printing and such. These are issues that we really dont want
to
>         deal with.
>       * With GtkSourceView I can file bugs upstream. This allows us to
>         focus on core issues.
>       * GtkSourceView is much, much faster than the C# buffer will
ever
>         be. I have a pre-alpha version working right now, there is a
>         world of difference. Your buffer is very well designed, I
quite
>         admire it; however, it really, really does not stand a chance
>         against the time tested buffer that GTK+ has.
> 
> On windows, where there is not such great support for buffers, your
path
> is really great. However, on GTK+, we have platform support, and we
> should use it.
> 
> This is like a swing vs. native GUI issue from my perspective.
> 


Ok I've read your blog and you convinced me :) (even if that doesn't
currently care anyone) 
Overally I agree with you that using the GtkSourceView has more
advantages than using the #Develop text editor widget which is indeed a
'work around' for the windows situation.

I don't know how much work it is to use the GtkSourceView widget inside
MonoDevelop because some #D source code might build up on the Document
layer but I don't think that this is much.

I would like to see MonoDevelop in action :) (currently I'm working on
the VB.NET support of #Develop and code folding)


Regards
Mike