Enhancements for wxWidgets 3.0 ============================== This table contains the brief summary of the issues below. Priority and Difficulty are values from 1 to 10 with 1 being the least important/difficult and 10 the most. Item Prio Diff ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Namespaces 8 6 STLization 10 8 Making code exception-friendly 8 10 Native RTTI 7 7 TRUE/true 9 1 C++ Features ============ - Namespaces: We want to have all wxWidgets identifiers in "wx" namespace but provide typedefs/#defines for backwards compatibility. This can be done easily for the classes and the only real problem are the enums as they would all have to be duplicated at both the global scope (with "wx" prefix) and in wx namespace (without it) - STLization This involves providing optional wxString implementation using std::string and doing the same for all our containers with the exception of wxHashMap which should simply be rewritten using templates (but keeping the old version for backwards compatibility -- ideally wx 3.0 would still be usable without templates, even if not all of its features would be available then) - Exceptions We are not going to use exceptions in wxWidgets itself but our code should become exception safe. This is a very difficult task as it means that no resource allocations (including memory, files, whatever) should be done without using a smart pointer-like object to store the result as it is the only way to prevent resource leaks in presence of exceptions - Real RTTI Optionally use the real RTTI instead of wx emulation of it. Keep the current stuff for backwards compatibility. - Complete replacing TRUE/FALSE with true/false Trivial Core ==== - use wxEventLoop in all builds wxApp and wxDialog should use wxEventLoop objects (the exact class can be customized by user code by overriding some wxApp::CreateEventLoop()) instead of duplicating the same code - remove wxCOMPATIBILITY (1.X) At least WXWIN_COMPATIBILITY and maybe WXWIN_COMPATIBILITY_2 code should be removed from the library. wxDEPRECATED() should be used with everything inside WXWIN_COMPATIBILITY_2_2. The stuff inside WXWIN_COMPATIBILITY_2_4 probably should not be deprecated (yet?) because this would give thousands of warnings for the existing code. - Modularization/Build System Candidates for components: + contrib widgets (and maybe some of the ones currently in the core) + wxHTML + network stuff + printing (?) + ODBC classes + ... - Project File Generation We need a (GUI) tool to generate the project/makefiles for all supported platforms/compilers. Not sure if it should be used for the library itself (would be nice to have something like "make menuconfig" for Linux kernel which allows you to navigate easily among all of the configure/setup.h options but there is a problem with distributing such tool as it can't be compiled by the user because it is needed before the library is built) but we definitely need it for the users makefiles. - Properties/Member-Metadata, 2-Step Init with virtual create - Tidy code and add comments to headers (possibly in Doxygen/Javadoc style) Documentation ============= - The possibility of moving doc into header files with tool support. - Detailed review of doc accuracy. - wxDC : Precise definition of default/initial state. - wxDC : Pixelwise definition of operations (e.g. last point of a line not drawn). - Events: For all controls state clearly when calling a member function results in an event being generated and when it doesn't. - Update the coding standards guide wxEvents ======== - Change Idle Handling Current Implementation is using too many CPU cycles - Loose Coupling Event-Source Event-Sink kind of the NextStep/C# very performant coupling, exposing events via Metadata - Add Lazy Init of Eventtables Modules/Plugins =============== Architecture ------------ We aim to arrive at a lazy initialization of modules only when they are first needed. Dependency information between modules is needed. Dynamic Plug-In loading and unloading must be compatible with that. wxUniversal =========== - Renderers within native ports. wxPrinting ========== - Page preflighting capabilities in order to determine number of pages. - Preview UI enhancement. wxStaticBox =========== Hide the platform problems (GTK: 'children' must be siblings) in encapsulation in order to avoid problems on ports where the hierarchy must be 'correct'. Removal of old code =================== In addition to wxCOMPATIBILITY code: - contrib/src/mmedia - contrib/src/applet? - Dialog Editor wxMiscellaneous =============== - wxDC Support for point to char-position with text rendering - wxLocale Extension (eg Currency) - wxStreams review - wxURL? - a way to tell wxWidgets to check for any non-portable usage, for a given set of platforms. Sometimes you want to be able to get away with non-portable usage, and sometimes not. This is probably way too time-consuming to implement. - In headers, don't silently omit contents if the features for this header is switched off. Instead, emit an error message. - Implement native tree view and colour dialog in wxGTK. - Better way to specify About, Preferences menu ids under wxMac. - Must be able to portably specify relaying out a frame after the toolbar has been destroyed or recreated. On wxMSW, this is done in ~wxToolBar. On wxGTK, in SetToolBar. In wxMac, not at all, but sending a wxSizeEvent will do it. - Need wxRect wxToolBar::GetToolRect(int id) or similar so we can align a popup menu with a toolbar button. - wxMac font selector dialog is the generic font selector - horrible. - No Append(wxArrayString&) for wxChoice and wxComboBox in wxGTK. Probably other functions too. Consider adding Insert to these classes, as per the patch on SF. - Rewrite wxFileHistory using wxString and wxArrayString, and put in separate file. - Add wxArrayString methods to wxTextValidator and any other class that needs them. - Add wxNotebook::GetTabRect or similar so we can estimate page size better in wxNotebookBase::CalcSizeFromPage. - Add function to clear all wxNotebook tabs without destroying the pages. - Add individual setters to wxScrollBar and other classes that use a combined setter. - Remove traces of old resource system from wxWizard. - Have wxDirCtrl as alias for wxGenericDirCtrl. - Allow instant reaction to left-up in a wxGrid cell (extend editor API) to work around bad checkbox behaviour (click, click, click, click away...) and reduce checkbox size on non-Windows platforms. - Add wxNotebook::HitTest for non-Windows platforms. - Implement rebar for all platforms. This will help us get closer to native look and feel, e.g. the gradient shadow on XP toolbars. 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