Linux installation

[Richard Gaskin]

Mark Wieder wrote:

> The problem lies with that RB thing you created to return the folder
> locations, and in particular with the fact that it's relying on the
> GIMP toolkit libraries for some GUI presentations. Not knowing any
> more details about what you did there I can't comment further on it.
> But it WILL NOT RUN on any linux system that does not have the gtk
> installed. Gnome by definition uses these libraries. Kde does not.
...
> As I see it, there is no problem with creating a runrev standalone (or
> executable, or whatever you want to call it) that runs on any flavor
> of linux. The problem with your folder app is a problem with RealBasic
> relying on the presence of the GIMP libraries for its GUI.

This is a problem I wouldn't mind having, but on balance it's noteworthy 
that KDE doesn't use GTK by default.

One issue with Rev on Linux is appearances -- it looks great, provided 
you like Motif. ;)

But seriously, how many people under 30 have ever seen Motif?

It might be a simple matter to just say "Let's use GTK", but if KDE 
doesn't use it then where would we be?

I suppose the upside is that KDE looks so much like Win 95 that setting 
Rev's lookAndFeel to "Win95" looks almost native there. :)

But of course that's a kludge, and it doesn't help those who would like 
to make one standalone for all x86 Linuxes.

So what's to be done?

It would be great if RunRev were to deliver an engine that took care of 
all of the window manager issues smoothly and easily for us, but on the 
other hand I'm pretty certain I wouldn't want them to take time away 
from XP enhancements -- and soon Vista as well, which is a much bigger 
undertaking (see the Vista User Experience Guidelines at 
<http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/UxGuide/UXGuide/Home.asp> 
-- it's almost as big a change as Mac's Platinum to Aqua).

Given Linux' desktop marketshare, and the complexity of Vista's Glass 
compositing/UI, if I were Mark Waddingham I'd find it hard to take time 
away from the latter for the former.

Is there any simpler approach RR could use to get native appearances on 
all Linux window managers?

Better still, any hope that we could lobby the window manager 
development teams to migrate toward a common API?

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Managing Editor, revJournal
  _______________________________________________________
  Rev tips, tutorials and more: http://www.revJournal.com