libs-back/Source/win32/RELEASE_NOTES

August 22, 2005

 CYGWIN 1.5.17(0.129/4/2) or higher
 CYGWIN CYGWIN_NT-5.1
 CYGWIN 2005-05-25 19:38
 
 Project OverView:
 I started this to simply fix the display of toolbars under cygwin...
 Well I wound up doing a whole lot more:
 
 Fixed in this release
    view resizing issues related to toolbars and minimizing of windows
    
    application hiding - main menu has a taskbar icon everything else hides
    
    Menu positioning bug - on activate after a hide - menu now does what it should
    
    App windows - now have a named taskbar icon
    
    window styles mapping - completed but not implimented; A future release will 
                            support native win32 decorations.
                            
    tear off Menus - now have a close button and an icon on the taskbar
    
    Context Menu - working much better not fully completed but very usable
    
    notifications - backend now receives key notifications from the App that it is
                    displaying.  see  details view for more info.
                    
    structure - backend is more managable with event type catagories.
                It will also support subclassing more easily.
                Positioned for a native backend implimentation (future)
                Other window evwnts not currently managed are stubbed and ready for
                a future release  
                
    debugging - with the right defines the backend will produce rich and readable
                log files.  See detail in the details view
    


 details view:
 
 Styles are mapped between the two systems note that this release does not
 utilize them but I have left them here for a future release.
 
 I have also removed the check for useWMTaskBar in this release.  behavior is native 
 win32 - at this point I do not have gworkspace running under cygwin so it is not 
 relivant.

 I do not use the handlesWindowDecorations in my code but it is still set for use
 by the original code.  I have not changed current inplimentation of mouse or keyboard
 events. 
 
 The WM_SETTEXT is removed from the event loop.  win32 will handle this nicely for us.
 It will give us nice taskbar icons with window titles!
 
 Window events are not posted - window events are either handled directly by the server 
 or are sent directly to the window that they were called on using:
  
    [EVENT_WINDOW(hwnd) sendEvent:anEvent]
 
 This fixes any issues with view related display problems... like toolbars for example.
 Mouse and Keyboard events are posted and qued as usual.
 
 
 New debug features: controls are found in w32_config.h
 
 #define _logging 
    use to log messages to NSDebuglog 

 define any of these at compile time or uncomment them in the w32_config.h
 and get a bucket to catch stdout!
 
 note: do not divert the out put from these next defines to NSDebuglog
      there is so much data that it will clog the works.
      I also do not recommend these be used unless you are debugging
      the back end 
 #define __W32_debug__ 
    activate the debug code in the main event server
    output is to standard out only
    
 #define __W32_debug_Event_loop 
    special flag for event loops and counts all posted events are 
    displayed in the log file.
     __W32_debug__ must be defined for this to work
    output is to standard out only
    
 #define __STATE (YES or NO)
    when set to yes, events that are not currently implimented but monitered
    in the event loop will be included in the log output
    __W32_debug__ must be defined for this to work
    output is to standard out only
    
 Event_format.sed
    pipe the output through sed with this file and it will clean up the 
    output and make it more reader friendly.
    

 Notifications:
 
    The backend now has better communication between it and the application.
    A display server needs to know what the app is doing in order to manage the
    task of displaying windows for it.  To that end the backend is registerd for 
    the following notifications:
    
    NSApplicationWillHideNotification
        Catch the hide event and set flags so that the backend will defer 
        to the native server (winxp NT or 9x) and allow the App to hide. 
    
    NSApplicationWillFinishLaunching
            registered but not utilized at this point (planned future development)
    
    NSApplicationDidFinishLaunching
        Catch the main menu and finalize its setup for use in the win32 
        environment.  I have used some native win32 code here to accomplish
        this task.  In future other tasks could also be carried out here.
  
    NSWindowWillMiniaturizeNotification
        Basically this is done for the same reason as catching the hide.
        Set flags so that the backend will defer to the native server 
        (winxp NT or 9x) and allow the window to miniturize without disturbing
        the views that it contains.

    The next two Notifications are custom and unique to the win32 server and
    are implimented to manage specific menu events.  I have overriden two internal
    NSMenu methods so that the notifications get sent. See notes on overrides.

    NSMenuWillTearOff
        Set the win32 style on the menu window so that it will display an icon on
        the taskbar with a title.  A tear of menu will always have a title that
        looks like: 'MENU submenu title' this makes it easy to find a tear off menu
        that could be hidden under any number of other windows.
        
    NSMenuwillPopUP
        This allows the backend to setup and manage the behavior of a context
        menu in the win32 environment.  This is not fully implimented but the
        behavior of the context menu is greatly improved.  More work will be done 
        on this in s future release.
        
    Note: when debug is active (#define __W32_debug__) the server will register for all 
          NSWindow notifications and some NSView notifications. Helps to show where 
          appevents and server events are happening relitive to each other.
          these are all dumpted to a formatter for display in the log output.
    
 Overrides of key methods:
 
    In order the get the behavior I wanted the following methods from NSMenu
    have been overriden:
    
    - (void) _rightMouseDisplay: (NSEvent*)theEvent;
        Modified by override to send NSMenuwillPopUP notification to the server.
        
    - (void) setTornOff: (BOOL)flag;
         Modified by override to send NSMenuWillTearOff notification to the server

 code Organization:
 
    The code has been restructured to allow for more flexibility, managability and
    future development. The main event code is organized as catagories of 
    WIN32Server in the following files:
  
    w32_config.h: manage all of the defines need to control the debug output
    w32_debug.m: all of the main debug log generation is done here
    GSDisplayServer_details.m: (special catagory for debug hooks)
  
    WIN32Server.m: main entry point for event handling

    w32_Events.h:  declarations of catagories and methods implimented in 
                   the follow files (see the code for more details)

    w32_activate.m
    w32_create.m
    w32_debug.m
    w32_general.m
    w32_movesize.m
    w32_text_focus.m
    w32_windowdisplay.m
  
  
  Future release:
  
  complete context menu handling
  
  Fully impliment window style mapping to allow for native win32 look.
  
  More robust window registration under win32.
  
  Parent - child window mapping down to the win32 level. This should give access
           to more events and improve server to server communication, and hopfully
           get a step closer to native evwent handling.
  
  display of custom app icons on the taskbar.
  
  Rect tracing when resizing windows
  
  log file manager; this is allready in progress but not ready for release
  
  integration with GSWorkspace
  
  re impliment keyboard events so that cut copy past and other key equivilents work
    
  Final closing remarks:
  I think I have addressed most if not all of the major issues with the win32backend... 
   
   PLEASE try it out and send FEEDBACK

    Tom MacSween  
    macsweent@sympatico.ca