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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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  32 <hr>
  33
  34 <H3><a name="about">About the wxWindows book</a></H3>
  35
  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>
  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>
  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 <!--
  96 <li><a href="mailto:tomr@scitechsoft.com">Tom Ryan</a>, SciTech Software.
  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 <!--
 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>
 112 -->
 113 </ul>
 114
 115 <hr>
 116
 117 <H3><a name="publication">Publication</a></H3>
 118
 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 <!--
 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
 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>
 155
 156 -->
 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>
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