annotate PROGRAMMING_NOTES @ 4359:5fb47ec9bfe4

[gaim-migrate @ 4625] Wow, okay, where to begin with this one ;) I rewrote the whole conversation backend. It is now core/UI split. Here's how it works.. Every conversation is represented by a gaim_conversation structure. This branches out into gaim_im and gaim_chat structures. Every conversation lives in (well, normally, but it doesn't have to) a gaim_window structure. This is a _CORE_ representation of a window. There can be multiple gaim_window structures around. The gaim_window and gaim_conversation structures have UI-specific operation structures associated with them. At the moment, the only UI is GTK+, and this will be for some time. Don't start thinking you can write a QT UI now. It's just not going to happen. Everything that is done on a conversation is done through the core API. This API does core processing and then calls the UI operations for the rendering and anything else. Now, what does this give the user? - Multiple windows. - Multiple tabs per window. - Draggable tabs. - Send As menu is moved to the menubar. - Menubar for chats. - Some very cool stuff in the future, like replacing, say, IRC chat windows with an X-Chat interface, or whatever. - Later on, customizable window/conversation positioning. For developers: - Fully documented API - Core/UI split - Variable checking and mostly sane handling of incorrect variables. - Logical structure to conversations, both core and UI. - Some very cool stuff in the future, like replacing, say, IRC chat windows with an X-Chat interface, or whatever. - Later on, customizable window/conversation positioning. - Oh yeah, and the beginning of a stock icon system. Now, there are things that aren't there yet. You will see tabs even if you have them turned off. This will be fixed in time. Also, the preferences will change to work with the new structure. I'm starting school in 2 days, so it may not be done immediately, but hopefully in the next week. Enjoy! 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.

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)