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  15 wxWindows Book
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  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>
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  33
  34 <H3><a name="about">About the wxWindows book</a></H3>
  35
  36 Discussions have been taking place on the wxwin-developers list about
  37 collaboratively writing a wxWindows book. The concensus is to write a tutorial
  38 book for people with reasonable C++ experience, with the possibility of including the API reference either in a very compact
  39 form at the back of the book, or as a separate volume. The book would almost certainly
  40 contain a CD-ROM with wxWindows and its documentation. It would probably be available
  41 for free on-line, publisher permitting.<P>
  42
  43 Goals for the book:<P>
  44
  45 <ol>
  46 <li> to allow users to become accomplished wxWindows developers rapidly;
  47 <li> to be useful over a longer period than just the first few weeks, since
  48 there are a lot of complex areas to address and not all features will be
  49 used up-front in a project;
  50 <li> to promote wxWindows to a wider audience;
  51 <li> to make at least some money for the authors.
  52 </ol>
  53
  54 <P>
  55
  56 Audience: beginners + experienced wxWindows users, but with reasonable C++
  57 knowledge.<P>
  58
  59 It is suggested that any financial return from the book be allocated on a points system,
  60 with a predefined number of points for chapters, indexing, editing, proof-reading etc.<P>
  61
  62 <hr>
  63
  64 <H3><a name="participants">Participants</a></H3>
  65
  66 So far, the following people are interested in taking part in this project:<P>
  67
  68 <ul>
  69 <li><a href="mailto:bsimser@home.com">Bil Simser</a>. Bil would like to coordinate
  70 the book. He's currently writing a book for WordWare Publishing (about his CDX library)
  71 and also has contacts at Sams and the Waite Group. Bil is writing <a href="http://lightning.prohosting.com/~wxbuild" target=_new>
  72 wxBuilder</a>, an IDE for wxWindows.
  73 <li><a href="mailto:tomr@scitechsoft.com">Tom Ryan</a>, SciTech Software.
  74 <li><a href="mailto:robin@alldunn.com">Robin Dunn</a>. <i>Chapter on wxPython.</i>
  75 <li><a href="mailto:mheck@www.surveyorcorp.com">Matt Heck</a>, SurveyorCorp Inc.
  76 <i>
  77 <ol>
  78   <li>a case study of how and why we've used wxWindows at Surveyor Corp., and
  79   how it's worked out so far;
  80   <li>an appendix something similar about how to use wxLIVID for video capture and display;
  81   <li>proofreading
  82 </ol>
  83 </i>
  84 <li><a href="mailto:julian.smart@ukonline.co.uk">Julian Smart</a>.
  85 <li><a href="mailto:zeitlin@dptmaths.ens-cachan.fr">Vadim Zeitlin</a>.
  86 <li><a href="mailto:slavik2@czn.cz">Vaclav Slavik</a>. <i>wxHTML section</i>
  87 <li><a href="mailto:csomor@advancedconcepts.ch">Stefan Csomor</a>. <i>the sequence of events i.e. which action provokes which event sequence,
  88 this is implicit for the use on MSW, but very important for other systems; and porting to new platforms</i>
  89 <li><a href="mailto:karsten@phy.hw.ac.uk">Karsten Ballueder</a>. <i>short tutorials on some useful
  90 GNU tools, like autoconf/configure/make, programming
  91 strategies, etc.</i>
  92 </ul>
  93
  94 <hr>
  95
  96 <H3><a name="publication">Publication</a></H3>
  97
  98 Tom Ryan originally wrote:<P>
  99
 100 <PRE>
 101 Hi Guys,
 102
 103 I just wanted to let you know that I have spoken with officials here
 104 at California State University, Chico and they are potentially
 105 interested in publishing a book on wxWindows!  A wxWindows
 106 book would give wxWindows a great deal of exposure.
 107
 108 These discussions came out of the fact that CSUC wanted to
 109 switch from MFC to wxWindows in their GUI programming classes,
 110 but there was not a book available for students to work with.
 111
 112 I was thinking that the first edition could be primarily the reference
 113 documentation combined with a basic wxTutorial and examples. In
 114 this case, it would be fairly straightforward to get something out
 115 initially and then we could take it from there.
 116 </PRE>
 117
 118 <p>
 119
 120 <a href="mailto:benles@powernet.net">Ben Allfree</a> has also expressed an interest
 121 in publishing a wxWindows book, and distributing it via Amazon. Ben was thinking
 122 in terms of a quickie job using the existing reference manual.<P>
 123
 124 Another publishing name to think of is O'Reilly. They would probably give us a lot
 125 of guidance for style, formatting, etc.<P>
 126
 127 <a href="mailto:Roald.Ribe@winlink.no">Roald Ribe</a> writes:
 128 "<a href="http://www.bruceeckel.com/javabook.html" target=_new>Thinking in Java</a>
 129 is published both as a PDF for internet (by the author) and in print by Prentice Hall."<P>
 130
 131 <hr>
 132
 133 <H3><a name="suggestions">Suggestions and comments</a></H3>
 134
 135 <ul>
 136 <li>Chapter on converting from MFC. (Julian Smart)
 137 <li>A chapter on why some inconsistencies are almost always going to show up in a
 138 multiplatform toolkit, how to avoid them, how to deal with when you have
 139 no choice, and (if wxBook explains the internals or philosophy of
 140 wxWindows at all) how wxWindows attempts to minimize the number we
 141 encounter. (Matt Heck)
 142 <li>Creating the shortest possible path to writing "Hello World" from scratch in wxWindows. (Matt Heck)
 143 <li>How will royalties for subsequent editions be shared out? (Tom Ryan)
 144 <li>"My personal feeling is that this project will wind up being developed
 145 by a small team, led by an editor that will wind up doing about half
 146 of the total amount of work." (Tom Ryan)
 147 </ul>
 148
 149 <hr>
 150
 151 <H3><a name="format">Text format</a></H3>
 152
 153 This depends partly on the publisher, but one possibility is to target Word but have
 154 submissions in a number of formats including Latex. We should eventually write a style
 155 and formatting guide.<P>
 156
 157 <hr>
 158
 159 <H3><a name="contents">Contents</a></H3>
 160
 161 This is open to suggestion.<P>
 162
 163 Last year, <a href="mailto:mlorenz@visionx.com">Mike Lorenz</a> of <a href="http://www.visionx.com">VisionX</a>
 164 suggested this
 165 <a href="http://www.visionx.com/wx/tutorial_outline.htm">tutorial outline</a>, which could
 166 be a good starting point.<P>
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