Re: GWindows and David Botton

[mcneills@landcareresearch.co.nz (Stephen McNeill)]

Fionn mac Cuimhaill <invisible@hiding.from.spam> wrote in message news:<9g87l018jg6p8q7vi6ttbdvrelt3ohrpfo@4ax.com>...

...

> And to get started, I would like to start laying out a roadmap of
> things that need to get done.  I can think of several areas that can
> stand some more work.
> 
> 1. Documentation. The existing tutorial intro is a good start, but it
> needs much work, as do the associated tutorial examples. For example,
> there is no section in the tutorial intro about the use of radio
> buttons, and there is no corresponding example program. 
> 
> Some of the examples show several variations of ways to do things,
> which might be best broken up into several independent example
> programs. The numbering scheme for tutorial programs needs to be
> changed so that new ones can be added without renumbering all of the
> later ones.
> 
> A reference manual is needed.
> 
> Documentation should be available in some form other than Word, as not
> everybody has or likes it. Anybody can get a free Adobe pdf reader,
> and I can easily create documents in that form. (I actually like
> WordPerfect, but few use it nowadays, although it can easily produce
> both pdf and html outputs.)

It seems not many enjoy writing documentation... What a shame, I enjoy
it.

I updated the existing (Botton) documentation for my own use and added
a reference manual, but I agree that it needs to be substantially
updated, and preferably overhauled completely. If this project goes
ahead with some kind of structure, I'd be happy to start working on
the documentation and reference manual.

> I'm going to need help; I am far from being the best Ada programmer in
> the world and I know little about low-level Windows API programming.
> If all goes well, both of those situations will change for the better
> as this project develops.

I think the key thing is to get the package up to the point where it
has the annoying bugs removed, and the basic capability smoothed out,
and documentation provided, so that new users can have some confidence
that using the package will be worth the investment in time. Then, and
only then, I think it will be worthwhile adding new modules, covering
new or expanded sections of the Windows API. That doesn't stop anyone
developing new capabilities of course.

Personally, I'm interested in extending the package in the multimedia
area, as well as providing some capability for graphics.

Stephen