annotate PROGRAMMING_NOTES @ 12116:e75ef7aa913e

[gaim-migrate @ 14416] " This patch implements a replacement for the queuing system from 1.x. It also obsoletes a previous patch [#1338873] I submitted to prioritize the unseen states in gtk conversations. The attached envelope.png is ripped from the msgunread.png already included in gaim. It should be dropped in the pixmaps directory (Makefile.am is updated accordingly in this patch). The two separate queuing preferences from 1.x, queuing messages while away and queuing all new messages (from docklet), are replaced with a single 3-way preference for conversations. The new preference is "Hide new IM conversations". This preference can be set to never, away and always. When a gtk conversation is created, it may be placed in a hidden conversation window instead of being placed normally. This decision is based upon the preference and possibly the away state of the account the conversation is being created for. This *will* effect conversations the user explicitly requests to be created, so in these cases the caller must be sure to present the conversation to the user, using gaim_gtkconv_present_conversation(). This is done already in gtkdialogs.c which handles creating conversations requested by the user from gaim proper (menus, double-clicking on budy in blist, etc.). The main advantage to not queuing messages is that the conversations exist, the message is written to the conversation (and logged if appropriate) and the unseen state is set on the conversation. This means no additional features are needed to track whether there are queued messages or not, just use the unseen state on conversations. Since conversations may not be visible (messages "queued"), gaim proper needs some notification that there are messages waiting. I opted for a menutray icon that shows up when an im conversation has an unseen message. Clicking this icon will focus (and show if hidden) the first conversation with an unseen message. This is essentially the same behavior of the docklet in cvs right now, except that the icon is only visible when there is a conversation with an unread message. The api that is added is flexible enough to allow either the docklet or the new blist menutray icon to be visible for conversations of any/all types and for unseen messages >= any state. Currently they are set to only IM conversations and only unseen states >= TEXT (system messages and no log messages will not trigger blinking the docklet or showing the blist tray icon), but these could be made preferences relatively easily in the future. Other plugins could probably benefit as well: gaim_gtk_conversations_get_first_unseen(). There is probably some limit to comment size, so I'll stop rambling now. If anyone has more questions/comments, catch me in #gaim, here or on gaim-devel." committer: Tailor Script <[e-mail]>

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

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)