An idea. What about a PHP-based PHP-Gtk emulation layer?
That would depend on how similar the two extensions work or what the different function/method signatures/behaviors are like. I haven't actually used winbinder yet so I can't really make that assessment. Although a PHP based solution would be nice for a temporary solution this sort of thing would be best done at the C level.
Creating one interface for windowing would involve porting and or changing allot of existing code (php-gtk and winbinder) and I'd bet that all the parties involved with those extensions might frown on the amount of work involved to do that when what they have existing already works. Specially PHP-GTK since they've been working very hard to port to PHP5. (though I shouldn't speak for anyone).
I'd be happy to help out with the interface design and build process if heads can get together and conjure something up.
-------------------
Rubem Pechansky
WinBinder - The native Windows binding for PHP
http://winbinder.sourceforge.net/
winbinder-discussion@lists.sourceforge.net
Hypervisual - Advanced Design for IT
http://hypervisual.com/
----- Original Message ----- From: "Justin Hannus" <jhannus@visualconceptsinc.com>
To: <pecl-dev@lists.php.net>
Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2004 10:07 AM
Subject: [PECL-DEV] Re: Should WinBinder be developed in Qt?
I still think that if there are going to be more than one windowing toolkit then there should be only one interface for all of them, similar to the design pattern of PDO and its different drivers. When an administrator or whomever went to compile a new version of PHP then they could supply the appropriate flags to `configure' to compile with the toolkit of their choice for their platform. i.e. --enable-windowing --with-windowing-[gtk|qt|w32|quartz]. This is something that I would think others would be definitely be interested in and would be happy to help out with including myself.
I also noticed some threads a while back on the kde lists discussing the porting of QT to PHP. You might want to start there, I know there were some concerns in terms of how kde's DCOP server/daemon would work with PHP.
"Rubem Pechansky" <pechansky@hypervisual.com> wrote in message news:026001c4b625$f4f81240$0c00a8c0@escher...
Hello all,
Manuel Lemos, of phpclasses.org fame, points out some important issues about
the future of WinBinder that I'd like to share with you. He thinks that if
WinBinder is meant to succeed it has to be a viable replacement for PHP-Gtk,
and this includes of course being multiplatform. He points Qt as the best
native multiplatform solution. Maybe he is right. IMO this approach has the
following advantages:
- Inherently multiplatform
- Qt's API is much easier to work with than Windows'
- API is fully tested and debugged, avoids tedious trial and error / testing
- Much more stable
And the disadvantages:
- Object-oriented model may compromise non-OO PHP/WinBinder
- Long learning curve for WinBinder core developers (i.e. me :)
- Need C++, not C (I'm not the best C++ programmer around)
- Can't compile with anything other than MS Visual Studio
- Possible license restrictions for future shareware/commercial products
(not sure)
- Extra footprint of about 3.5 MB
Of course the sooner the decision is made, the better. What do you think?
Should I halt the development of WinBinder as it is now and delve deep into
Qt?
-------------------
Rubem Pechansky
WinBinder - The native Windows binding for PHP
http://winbinder.sourceforge.net/
winbinder-discussion@lists.sourceforge.net
Hypervisual - Advanced Design for IT
http://hypervisual.com/
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