annotate PROGRAMMING_NOTES @ 5332:4d734dbc88dd

[gaim-migrate @ 5705] Improved installer.. Now installs for all users, not only admins. Gaim is once again installing GTK+, through the GTK+ installer available at Gaim's win32 web page. Also now giving user option to install GTK theme engines. There is also now a half way solution to deal with DLL Hell.. On installation the Gaim installer will notify the user if there are any dlls in his system directories that could conflict with the GTK dlls, and will offer to rename them to avoid the conflict. This is a half way solution because it will probably break the apps responsible for putting those dlls in the system directories.. committer: Tailor Script <[e-mail]>

Notes on keeping GAIM OS independant
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General
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- 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)