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  15 wxWindows Book
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  21 <P>
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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:tomr@scitechsoft.com">Tom Ryan</a>, SciTech Software.
  70 <li><a href="mailto:robin@alldunn.com">Robin Dunn</a>. <i>Chapter on wxPython.</i>
  71 <li><a href="mailto:mheck@www.surveyorcorp.com">Matt Heck</a>, SurveyorCorp Inc.
  72 <i>
  73 <ol>
  74   <li>a case study of how and why we've used wxWindows at Surveyor Corp., and
  75   how it's worked out so far;
  76   <li>an appendix something similar about how to use wxLIVID for video capture and display;
  77   <li>proofreading
  78 </ol>
  79 </i>
  80 <li><a href="mailto:julian.smart@ukonline.co.uk">Julian Smart</a>.
  81 <li><a href="mailto:zeitlin@dptmaths.ens-cachan.fr">Vadim Zeitlin</a>.
  82 </ul>
  83
  84 <hr>
  85
  86 <H3><a name="publication">Publication</a></H3>
  87
  88 Tom Ryan originally wrote:<P>
  89
  90 <PRE>
  91 Hi Guys,
  92
  93 I just wanted to let you know that I have spoken with officials here
  94 at California State University, Chico and they are potentially
  95 interested in publishing a book on wxWindows!  A wxWindows
  96 book would give wxWindows a great deal of exposure.
  97
  98 These discussions came out of the fact that CSUC wanted to
  99 switch from MFC to wxWindows in their GUI programming classes,
 100 but there was not a book available for students to work with.
 101
 102 I was thinking that the first edition could be primarily the reference
 103 documentation combined with a basic wxTutorial and examples. In
 104 this case, it would be fairly straightforward to get something out
 105 initially and then we could take it from there.
 106 </PRE>
 107
 108 <p>
 109
 110 <a href="mailto:benles@powernet.net">Ben Allfree</a> has also expressed an interest
 111 in publishing a wxWindows book, and distributing it via Amazon. Ben was thinking
 112 in terms of a quickie job using the existing reference manual.<P>
 113
 114 Another publishing name to think of is O'Reilly. They would probably give us a lot
 115 of guidance for style, formatting, etc.<P>
 116
 117
 118 <hr>
 119
 120 <H3><a name="suggestions">Suggestions and comments</a></H3>
 121
 122 <ul>
 123 <li>Chapter on converting from MFC. (Julian Smart)
 124 <li>A chapter on why some inconsistencies are almost always going to show up in a
 125 multiplatform toolkit, how to avoid them, how to deal with when you have
 126 no choice, and (if wxBook explains the internals or philosophy of
 127 wxWindows at all) how wxWindows attempts to minimize the number we
 128 encounter. (Matt Heck)
 129 <li>Creating the shortest possible path to writing "Hello World" from scratch in wxWindows. (Matt Heck)
 130 <li>How will royalties for subsequent editions be shared out? (Tom Ryan)
 131 <li>"My personal feeling is that this project will wind up being developed
 132 by a small team, led by an editor that will wind up doing about half
 133 of the total amount of work." (Tom Ryan)
 134 </ul>
 135
 136 <hr>
 137
 138 <H3><a name="format">Text format</a></H3>
 139
 140 This depends partly on the publisher, but one possibility is to target Word but have
 141 submissions in a number of formats including Latex. We should eventually write a style
 142 and formatting guide.<P>
 143
 144 <hr>
 145
 146 <H3><a name="contents">Contents</a></H3>
 147
 148 This is open to suggestion.<P>
 149
 150 Last year, <a href="mailto:mlorenz@visionx.com">Mike Lorenz</a> of <a href="http://www.visionx.com">VisionX</a>
 151 suggested this
 152 <a href="http://www.visionx.com/wx/tutorial_outline.htm">tutorial outline</a>, which could
 153 be a good starting point.<P>
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