Cross-platform GUI

[Bob Hunter]

Installing gnucash via DarwinPorts requires space and
time for compiling the source code of all the required
libraries. True, the process is guided and automatic,
but I just cannot afford re-building the world of
linux under osx just to run gnucash under X11+GTK.

Installing gnucash via Fink is more reasonable,
because the components are distributed in binary form.

Now, looking forward, what I really wanted to ask is,
a binary distribution of gnucash similar to mozilla
firefox, that is a single .dmg installer package that
one can download, run, and thus have a nice icon in
the Applications folder that you can click on, and
have a native application running under osx. I
understand that the gap from the present distribution
to a mozilla-like distribution is huge, but is not
impossible, as they did it. There are plenty of other
open-source project that managed to do the same. The
core difficulty in doing this for gnucash is its GUI,
because GTK is not a native library of osx, or
windows. It is also not a native library of linux. My
recommendation to use xwidgets is far less trivial.
You kept mentioning qt, but qt cannot be compared to
xwidgets. xwidgets is a meta-toolkit, that is you can
choose to compile the application in gtk, qt, or a
number of other GUI systems, including those of osx
and windows, with no need to re-write the application.
In so doing, you could distribute binary versions of
gnucash with a native GUI for each platform, with no
need to re-write gnucash. I strongly encourage you to
reconsider your long term strategy. I understand that
there is only 10 of you, but you may consider opening
a parallel project to port gnucash to xwidgets, and
simply ask people to get involved. I am sure that, if
you interact with xwidgets, you will find people who
are willing to take the port on their shoulders.
Finally, if your GUI is tightly coupled with the
financial procedures, I strongly suggest to redesign
the whole application, separating the core code from
the GUI. This will make it easier to maintain the core
application. Further, a cleaner, well structured
source can only be easier to read, and thus attract
more developers. gnucash has a great potential, but it
needs to go the extra mile. Think large. Look forward.




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