[wxWidgets.git] / docs / html / wxbook.htm

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<HEAD>
<TITLE>wxWindows Book</TITLE>
</HEAD>

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<font face="Arial, Lucida Sans, Helvetica">

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<font size=+1 face="Arial, Lucida Sans, Helvetica" color="#000000">
wxWindows Book
</font>
</td>
</tr>
</table>

<P>

<center>
<a href="#about">About</a> |
<a href="#participants">Participants</a> |
<a href="#publication">Publication</a> |
<a href="#suggestions">Suggestions</a> |
<a href="#format">Format</a> |
<a href="#contents">Contents</a>
</center>

<hr>

<H3><a name="about">About the wxWindows book</a></H3>

Discussions have been taking place on the wxwin-developers list
about collaboratively writing a wxWindows book. The book will
not include the API reference, though this could be a
separate project. The book will be accompanied by a CD-ROM with
wxWindows and its documentation. The book will initially be
available on-line, and when enough is done we will look for a
publisher.<P>

There will also be a separate small booklet which can easily be printed
out and which gives an overview of wxWindows facilities by taking
the reader through a single worked example. Guillermo Rodriguez
Garcia has volunteered to write this, and will use his Life!
demo to illustrate it.<P>

Goals for the book:<P>

<ol>
<li> to allow users to become accomplished wxWindows developers rapidly;
<li> to be useful over a longer period than just the first few weeks, since
there are a lot of complex areas to address and not all features will be
used up-front in a project;
<li> to promote wxWindows to a wider audience;
<li> to make at least some money for the authors.
</ol>

<P>

Audience: beginners + experienced wxWindows users, but with reasonable C++
knowledge.<P>

It is suggested that any financial return from the book be allocated on a points system,
with a predefined number of points for chapters, indexing, editing, proof-reading etc.<P>

<hr>

<H3><a name="participants">Participants</a></H3>

So far, the following people are interested in taking part in this project:<P>

<ul>
<li><a href="mailto:julian.smart@ukonline.co.uk">Julian Smart</a> -
editor and coordinator of the project; introductory chapter, some other
chapters.
<li><a href="mailto:guille@iies.es">Guillermo Rodriguez Garcia</a> - Separate tutorial booklet;
communication classes (wxSocket, wxXXXServer, some protocol stuff); timing and timers.
<li><a href="mailto:robin@alldunn.com">Robin Dunn</a> - wxPython chapter.
</i>
<li><a href="mailto:zeitlin@dptmaths.ens-cachan.fr">Vadim Zeitlin</a> - drag and drop chapter?
<li><a href="mailto:slavik2@czn.cz">Vaclav Slavik</a> - wxHTML section.
<li><a href="mailto:gtasker@fastpicsystems.com">George Tasker</a> - database chapter.
<li><a href="mailto:moreno@mochima.com">Carlos Moreno</a> - wxImage, wxBitmap.
<li><a href="mailto:Shiv@pspl.co.in">Shiv Shankar Ramakrishnan</a> - wxWindows advocacy, convincing your manager,
container classes and strings, comparison with STL
<li><a href="mailto:markusneifer@my-Deja.com">Markus Neifer</a> - user-defined events.

<!--
<li><a href="mailto:csomor@advancedconcepts.ch">Stefan Csomor</a>. The sequence of events i.e. which action provokes which event sequence,
this is implicit for the use on MSW, but very important for other systems; and porting to new platforms
-->
<!--
<li><a href="mailto:tomr@scitechsoft.com">Tom Ryan</a>, SciTech Software.
-->
<!--
<li><a href="mailto:karsten@phy.hw.ac.uk">Karsten Ballueder</a>. Short tutorials on some useful
GNU tools, like autoconf/configure/make, programming
strategies, etc.
-->
<!--
<li><a href="mailto:mheck@www.surveyorcorp.com">Matt Heck</a>, SurveyorCorp Inc.
<i>
<ol>
  <li>a case study of how and why we've used wxWindows at Surveyor Corp., and
  how it's worked out so far;
  <li>an appendix something similar about how to use wxLIVID for video capture and display;
  <li>proofreading
</ol>
-->
</ul>

<hr>

<H3><a name="publication">Publication</a></H3>

We should have a substantial chunk of wxBook done before we approach a publisher,
because with the risks of multiple author

<!--
Tom Ryan originally wrote:<P>

<PRE>
Hi Guys,

I just wanted to let you know that I have spoken with officials here 
at California State University, Chico and they are potentially 
interested in publishing a book on wxWindows!  A wxWindows 
book would give wxWindows a great deal of exposure.

These discussions came out of the fact that CSUC wanted to 
switch from MFC to wxWindows in their GUI programming classes, 
but there was not a book available for students to work with. 

I was thinking that the first edition could be primarily the reference 
documentation combined with a basic wxTutorial and examples. In 
this case, it would be fairly straightforward to get something out 
initially and then we could take it from there.
</PRE>

<p>

<a href="mailto:benles@powernet.net">Ben Allfree</a> has also expressed an interest
in publishing a wxWindows book, and distributing it via Amazon. Ben was thinking
in terms of a quickie job using the existing reference manual.<P>

Another publishing name to think of is O'Reilly. They would probably give us a lot
of guidance for style, formatting, etc.<P>

<a href="mailto:Roald.Ribe@winlink.no">Roald Ribe</a> writes:
"<a href="http://www.bruceeckel.com/javabook.html" target=_new>Thinking in Java</a>
is published both as a PDF for internet (by the author) and in print by Prentice Hall."<P>

-->
<hr>

<H3><a name="suggestions">Suggestions and comments</a></H3>

<ul>
<li>Chapter on converting from MFC. (Julian Smart)
<li>A chapter on why some inconsistencies are almost always going to show up in a
multiplatform toolkit, how to avoid them, how to deal with when you have
no choice, and (if wxBook explains the internals or philosophy of
wxWindows at all) how wxWindows attempts to minimize the number we
encounter. (Matt Heck)
<li>Creating the shortest possible path to writing "Hello World" from scratch in wxWindows. (Matt Heck)
<li>How will royalties for subsequent editions be shared out? (Tom Ryan)
<li>"My personal feeling is that this project will wind up being developed 
by a small team, led by an editor that will wind up doing about half 
of the total amount of work." (Tom Ryan)
</ul>

<hr>

<H3><a name="format">Text format</a></H3>

This depends partly on the publisher, but one possibility is to target Word but have
submissions in a number of formats including Latex. We should eventually write a style
and formatting guide.<P>

<hr>

<H3><a name="contents">Contents</a></H3>

This is open to suggestion.<P>

Last year, <a href="mailto:mlorenz@visionx.com">Mike Lorenz</a> of <a href="http://www.visionx.com">VisionX</a>
suggested this
<a href="http://www.visionx.com/wx/tutorial_outline.htm">tutorial outline</a>, which could
be a good starting point.<P>

</font>

</BODY>

</HTML>
Commit	Line	Data
bed9b806 JS	1	<HTML>
	2
	3	<HEAD>
	4	<TITLE>wxWindows Book</TITLE>
	5	</HEAD>
	6
	7	<BODY BGCOLOR=#FFFFFF TEXT=#000000 LINK=#FF0000 VLINK=#000000>
	8
	9	<font face="Arial, Lucida Sans, Helvetica">
	10
f6bcfd97	11	<table width=100% border=0 cellpadding=5 cellspacing=0>
bed9b806	12	<tr>
f6bcfd97 BP	13	<td bgcolor="#C4ECF9">
f6bcfd97 BP	14	<font size=+1 face="Arial, Lucida Sans, Helvetica" color="#000000">
bed9b806 JS	15	wxWindows Book
	16	</font>
	17	</td>
	18	</tr>
	19	</table>
	20
	21	<P>
	22
	23	<center>
	24	<a href="#about">About</a> \|
	25	<a href="#participants">Participants</a> \|
	26	<a href="#publication">Publication</a> \|
	27	<a href="#suggestions">Suggestions</a> \|
	28	<a href="#format">Format</a> \|
	29	<a href="#contents">Contents</a>
	30	</center>
	31
	32	<hr>
	33
	34	<H3><a name="about">About the wxWindows book</a></H3>
	35
ad90972f JS	36	Discussions have been taking place on the wxwin-developers list
	37	about collaboratively writing a wxWindows book. The book will
	38	not include the API reference, though this could be a
	39	separate project. The book will be accompanied by a CD-ROM with
	40	wxWindows and its documentation. The book will initially be
	41	available on-line, and when enough is done we will look for a
	42	publisher.<P>
	43
	44	There will also be a separate small booklet which can easily be printed
	45	out and which gives an overview of wxWindows facilities by taking
	46	the reader through a single worked example. Guillermo Rodriguez
	47	Garcia has volunteered to write this, and will use his Life!
	48	demo to illustrate it.<P>
bed9b806 JS	49
	50	Goals for the book:<P>
	51
	52	<ol>
	53	<li> to allow users to become accomplished wxWindows developers rapidly;
	54	<li> to be useful over a longer period than just the first few weeks, since
	55	there are a lot of complex areas to address and not all features will be
	56	used up-front in a project;
	57	<li> to promote wxWindows to a wider audience;
	58	<li> to make at least some money for the authors.
	59	</ol>
	60
	61	<P>
	62
	63	Audience: beginners + experienced wxWindows users, but with reasonable C++
	64	knowledge.<P>
	65
	66	It is suggested that any financial return from the book be allocated on a points system,
	67	with a predefined number of points for chapters, indexing, editing, proof-reading etc.<P>
	68
	69	<hr>
	70
	71	<H3><a name="participants">Participants</a></H3>
	72
	73	So far, the following people are interested in taking part in this project:<P>
	74
	75	<ul>
ad90972f JS	76	<li><a href="mailto:julian.smart@ukonline.co.uk">Julian Smart</a> -
	77	editor and coordinator of the project; introductory chapter, some other
	78	chapters.
	79	<li><a href="mailto:guille@iies.es">Guillermo Rodriguez Garcia</a> - Separate tutorial booklet;
	80	communication classes (wxSocket, wxXXXServer, some protocol stuff); timing and timers.
	81	<li><a href="mailto:robin@alldunn.com">Robin Dunn</a> - wxPython chapter.
	82	</i>
	83	<li><a href="mailto:zeitlin@dptmaths.ens-cachan.fr">Vadim Zeitlin</a> - drag and drop chapter?
	84	<li><a href="mailto:slavik2@czn.cz">Vaclav Slavik</a> - wxHTML section.
	85	<li><a href="mailto:gtasker@fastpicsystems.com">George Tasker</a> - database chapter.
	86	<li><a href="mailto:moreno@mochima.com">Carlos Moreno</a> - wxImage, wxBitmap.
	87	<li><a href="mailto:Shiv@pspl.co.in">Shiv Shankar Ramakrishnan</a> - wxWindows advocacy, convincing your manager,
	88	container classes and strings, comparison with STL
	89	<li><a href="mailto:markusneifer@my-Deja.com">Markus Neifer</a> - user-defined events.
	90
	91	<!--
	92	<li><a href="mailto:csomor@advancedconcepts.ch">Stefan Csomor</a>. The sequence of events i.e. which action provokes which event sequence,
	93	this is implicit for the use on MSW, but very important for other systems; and porting to new platforms
	94	-->
	95	<!--
bed9b806	96	<li><a href="mailto:tomr@scitechsoft.com">Tom Ryan</a>, SciTech Software.
ad90972f JS	97	-->
	98	<!--
	99	<li><a href="mailto:karsten@phy.hw.ac.uk">Karsten Ballueder</a>. Short tutorials on some useful
	100	GNU tools, like autoconf/configure/make, programming
	101	strategies, etc.
	102	-->
	103	<!--
bed9b806 JS	104	<li><a href="mailto:mheck@www.surveyorcorp.com">Matt Heck</a>, SurveyorCorp Inc.
	105	<i>
	106	<ol>
	107	<li>a case study of how and why we've used wxWindows at Surveyor Corp., and
	108	how it's worked out so far;
	109	<li>an appendix something similar about how to use wxLIVID for video capture and display;
	110	<li>proofreading
	111	</ol>
ad90972f	112	-->
bed9b806 JS	113	</ul>
	114
	115	<hr>
	116
	117	<H3><a name="publication">Publication</a></H3>
	118
ad90972f JS	119	We should have a substantial chunk of wxBook done before we approach a publisher,
	120	because with the risks of multiple author
	121
	122	<!--
bed9b806 JS	123	Tom Ryan originally wrote:<P>
	124
	125	<PRE>
	126	Hi Guys,
	127
	128	I just wanted to let you know that I have spoken with officials here
	129	at California State University, Chico and they are potentially
	130	interested in publishing a book on wxWindows! A wxWindows
	131	book would give wxWindows a great deal of exposure.
	132
	133	These discussions came out of the fact that CSUC wanted to
	134	switch from MFC to wxWindows in their GUI programming classes,
	135	but there was not a book available for students to work with.
	136
	137	I was thinking that the first edition could be primarily the reference
	138	documentation combined with a basic wxTutorial and examples. In
	139	this case, it would be fairly straightforward to get something out
	140	initially and then we could take it from there.
	141	</PRE>
	142
	143	<p>
	144
	145	<a href="mailto:benles@powernet.net">Ben Allfree</a> has also expressed an interest
	146	in publishing a wxWindows book, and distributing it via Amazon. Ben was thinking
	147	in terms of a quickie job using the existing reference manual.<P>
	148
	149	Another publishing name to think of is O'Reilly. They would probably give us a lot
	150	of guidance for style, formatting, etc.<P>
	151
c7527e3f JS	152	<a href="mailto:Roald.Ribe@winlink.no">Roald Ribe</a> writes:
	153	"<a href="http://www.bruceeckel.com/javabook.html" target=_new>Thinking in Java</a>
	154	is published both as a PDF for internet (by the author) and in print by Prentice Hall."<P>
bed9b806	155
ad90972f	156	-->
bed9b806 JS	157	<hr>
	158
	159	<H3><a name="suggestions">Suggestions and comments</a></H3>
	160
	161	<ul>
	162	<li>Chapter on converting from MFC. (Julian Smart)
	163	<li>A chapter on why some inconsistencies are almost always going to show up in a
	164	multiplatform toolkit, how to avoid them, how to deal with when you have
	165	no choice, and (if wxBook explains the internals or philosophy of
	166	wxWindows at all) how wxWindows attempts to minimize the number we
	167	encounter. (Matt Heck)
	168	<li>Creating the shortest possible path to writing "Hello World" from scratch in wxWindows. (Matt Heck)
	169	<li>How will royalties for subsequent editions be shared out? (Tom Ryan)
	170	<li>"My personal feeling is that this project will wind up being developed
	171	by a small team, led by an editor that will wind up doing about half
	172	of the total amount of work." (Tom Ryan)
	173	</ul>
	174
	175	<hr>
	176
	177	<H3><a name="format">Text format</a></H3>
	178
	179	This depends partly on the publisher, but one possibility is to target Word but have
	180	submissions in a number of formats including Latex. We should eventually write a style
	181	and formatting guide.<P>
	182
	183	<hr>
	184
	185	<H3><a name="contents">Contents</a></H3>
	186
	187	This is open to suggestion.<P>
	188
	189	Last year, <a href="mailto:mlorenz@visionx.com">Mike Lorenz</a> of <a href="http://www.visionx.com">VisionX</a>
	190	suggested this
	191	<a href="http://www.visionx.com/wx/tutorial_outline.htm">tutorial outline</a>, which could
	192	be a good starting point.<P>
	193
	194	</font>
	195
	196	</BODY>
	197
	198	</HTML>