[sword-devel] HTML-based Windows Front End?
David
dnr at crosswire.org
Tue Jun 21 00:52:29 MST 2005
I have experimented with several different things lately, the main
objective was a light weight html document view. Not specifically for
Sword, but I tend to believe that this is needed for all Bible study
software in the future. A secondary concern was a gui framework, and
cross platform would be nice but not required. Here are my conclusions
(it might save someone a little time):
1. wxWidgets: The html view is really not sufficient, and it also
results in very large executables.
2. QT: A very complete framework. And I think provides most support that
is needed, but the dll is about 6 megs. And text copied from the html
view does not maintain formatting. Also I believe that it will not
support Win95. There are some people who still use Win95, it would be
nice (if possible) to maintain support for those people who really can
not afford to buy new computers, or upgrade the ones that they have. Of
course QT will most likely not be installed on the users system, so that
means the basic starter package will be quite a bit larger. Not good for
people who do not have fast internet connections.
3 GTK+: Very nice, Glade is not as fancy a gui designer as a lot of
tools but it makes it very easy to create even complicated gui's
quickly. And it can generate code in C, or C++, and it can use libglade.
It can also generate projects for Dev C++, VC6, and I think some other
ide's. There are 1 bug that I have seen that I think will be fixed in
the next release scheduled later this year, and that is with painting of
windows when a vpane, or hpane has been resized. Print support does not
exist but I think it is scheduled for the next release also. It has the
same problem of loosing formatting when pasting text that QT has, and I
have not seen anything about support for that being added. GtkTextView
is really nice with the exception that it does not support bulleted
lists, and tables (I am not sure if there are any plans for supporting
those things either). I think that everything needed for GTK+ will
compress down to about 2 megabytes (zip compression).
4. Embedding Internet Explorer: Provides everything needed as for
rendering, but you can not be certain that there will be a suitable
version installed on the users computer. And if not it would be a pretty
large download.
5. Embedding Mozilla: The ActiveX control does not expose all of the
interfaces that will be needed by BibleCS, either the ActiveX control
would need to be improved, or interface with xpcom instead. But, either
way this could result in a large download.
6. Building components from the Mozilla source: The build process for
Mozilla is complicated. I have been able to build nspr, and some of the
other dll's but I have not been able to build the complete browser. And
I have tried separating some of the components, but that proves to be a
difficult task also.
The conclusion:
Mozilla uses native functions to draw text, controls etc. So there will
not be any special libraries needed to build an html control (other than
for images) on Windows. Use native functions to create an html rendering
engine for Windows. Using messages, and callback functions that emulate
RichEdit could make it easier to get it working in BibleCS (of course
BibleCS interacts with RichEdit through a Delphi wrapper, so that might
make it a little more complicated to make the change). Creating the
rendering engine should not be really difficult with the exception of
table support. But, currently BibleCS does not have support for tables,
so if that were left out, it would still not be a step backward. Table
support could be added later. There are a couple of advantages to this
that one might not think of at first, like designing the parser for the
rendering engine to work directly with OSIS. Which would make sense
since the 2 pass filter which is planned to come after the 1 pass filter
will be going from whatever the input specification is to OSIS to
whatever the required output specification is for the renderer.
Instead of something like:
ThML > OSIS > RTF, or
ThML > OSIS > HTML,or
OSIS > RTF,or
OSIS > HTML
It would be:
ThML > OSIS, and documents that were already marked up in OSIS could be
passed directly to the rendering engine.
DNR
DM Smith wrote:
> Greg,
> If the architecture of a non-trivial program is sound, I find that
> it is easier to improve something than to start all over from scratch.
> If there are only a few features of BibleCS that are less than ideal,
> then it probably should be much easier to fix those than to start all
> over.
> I imagine that when BibleCS developers looks at rendering HTML
> that they will evaluate the different possibilities (much as we are
> for BibleDesktop/JSword) of available HTML renderers. It is quite
> possible that Qt will be evaluated. They may find (as we are with BD)
> that the best choice requires significant rewrite.
> If you are capable of writing a system from scratch, I think that
> you would be of greater help to improve one of the existing projects.
> Try taking BibleCS and drop in an HTML renderer where the RTF renderer
> is today. Preserve the existing behavior of intra-application cross
> references, dictionary lookups and informational popups. You can get
> the source via SVN and modify it to your hearts content.
> If all you are wanting is an HTML rendering, BibleDesktop already
> does that. So do other Sword derivatives (e.g. web apps). If you are
> looking for a cross-platform application, BibleDesktop is that. If you
> want to code in C++ for Windows, then BibleCS is where it's at. If you
> want to program using Qt, try BibleTime (perhaps port it to Windows).
> And if you want to program in Gnome for Linux or on the Mac, there are
> projects for that.
> Each of these projects want committed developers to join them.
> Please help.
> Thanks,
> DM
>
>
> Greg Hellings wrote:
>
>> I don't want to be tied to a single IDE and layout program. Also, I
>> have been informed that there are a few features of BibleCS that are
>> less than ideal. I realize that no program is ideal, but if one were
>> to start over, then these flaws could be fixed. Work ages with
>> perfection, does it not? Perhaps it is time that the Windows client
>> for Sword return in a second manifestation.
>>
>> --Greg
>>
>> On 6/17/05, *Chris Little* <chrislit at crosswire.org
>> <mailto:chrislit at crosswire.org>> wrote:
>>
>> Why are you planning to start from scratch rather than adding HTML
>> rendering to BibleCS? (out of curiosity)
>>
>> Greg Hellings wrote:
>> > Yes, the need is pretty glaring. Is the support there? If someone
>> > ( i.e. myself?) were to begin work, would help be forthcoming?
>> > Presumably Bibletime would be possible in Windows with the recent
>> > release of free Qt for Windows, but would a native UI
>> achievable with wx
>> > be desireable?
>> >
>> > On 6/16/05, *DM Smith* <dmsmith555 at yahoo.com
>> <mailto:dmsmith555 at yahoo.com>
>> > <mailto:dmsmith555 at yahoo.com <mailto:dmsmith555 at yahoo.com>>> wrote:
>> >
>> > See http://www.crosswire.org/bugs/browse/BCS-24. Troy
>> mentions that
>> > "yep, we need to switch to an HTML renderer" for BibleCS.
>> >
>> > Greg Hellings wrote:
>> >
>> >> Fellow Sword-bearers,
>> >> Would there be any interest amongst the Sword developer's
>> >> community to develop a new front end for Sword that would
>> be based
>> >> off of HTML display rather than the current one with its
>> >> RTF-base? I realize that there already is BibleStudy to
>> >> supplement BibleCS, but the current 1.0 release of
>> BibleStudy is a
>> >> bit dated. When I did a check-out from CVS for it, it
>> would not
>> >> compile against the newest versions of the Sword
>> library. What I
>> >> am thinking of would be a complete rewrite, hopefully
>> using the
>> >> wxWidgets, as BibleStudy aimed for. I have been
>> experimenting
>> >> recently with wxMozilla, which is a wrapper for Gecko within
>> >> wxWidgets which makes the Gecko engine surprisingly simple to
>> >> use. I would like to start development on a new client
>> some time
>> >> in the next few weeks and have a first pass at it out by
>> the end
>> >> of August, hopefully.
>> >>
>> >> Is there other support for this within the community? I
>> noticed
>> >> in the ancient archives of the Sword developers, someone had
>> >> proposed this idea, but it seems to have died off fairly
>> rapidly.
>> >> Let me hear some feedback!
>> >>
>> >> --Greg
>> >>
>> >>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> >>
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