annotate PROGRAMMING_NOTES @ 11117:5a8bc4b1f5b6

[gaim-migrate @ 13173] Patch #1052811, from Szilard Novaki "gevolution plugin should register a "Send Email" popup menuitem to send mail for users using gaim contact list. See the attached patch (patched for gaim-1.0.2 release)." I made a number of changes to this to simplify it. Thanks to shres and NotZed in #evolution on irc.gnome.org for their help. Other changes: - I may have squashed some leaks in existing code as I tracked down leaks in the new code. I'm not really sure. It still leaks something that I can't track down, but that happens even if you don't call any of the new code. I verified that it was happening pre-patch, so it's no worse with this feature addition. - It's not really Ximian Evolution anymore, so I changed the summary and description to remove "Ximian", leaving it just Evolution. committer: Tailor Script <[e-mail]>

Notes on keeping GAIM OS independant
------------------------------------

General
-------
- Use G_DIR_SEPARATOR_S and G_DIR_SEPARATOR for paths

- Use g_getenv, g_snprintf, g_vsnprintf

- Use gaim_home_dir instead of g_get_home_dir or g_getenv("HOME")

- Make sure when including win32dep.h that it is the last header to
  be included.

- Open binary files when reading or writing with 'b' mode.

  e.g: fopen("somefile", "wb");

  Not doing so will open files in windows using defaut translation mode. 
  i.e. newline -> <CR><LF>

Paths
-----

- DATADIR, LOCALEDIR & LIBDIR are defined in wingaim as functions.
  Doing the following will therefore break the windows build:

  printf("File in DATADIR is: %s\n", DATADIR G_DIR_SEPARATOR_S "pic.png");

  it should be:

  printf("File in DATADIR is: %s%s%s\n", DATADIR, G_DIR_SEPARATOR_S, "pic.png");

PLUGINS & PROTOS
----------------

- G_MODULE_EXPORT all functions which are to be accessed from outside the
  scope of its "dll" or "so". (E.G. gaim_plugin_init)

- G_MODULE_IMPORT all global variables which are located outside your
  dynamic library. (E.G. connections)

  (Not doing this will cause "Memory Access Violations" in Win32)