Talk:X Window Programming

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[edit] Merging GTK+ Book

Merging the GTK+ book into this book would allow people to contribute to one effort rather then dividing the community as well as allows readers to learn GTK+ along with other aspects of X Windows Programming. --darklama 17:33, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Excellent idea. --Swift 08:18, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Bad idea. Remember that GTK is cross-platform. It does not have to run under X. - Anonymous 16:05, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Please don't do this. You don't need to know anything about X to program using Gtk, and you don't need to know anything about Gtk to program X Windows. --Tony Sidaway 23:04, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Another vote for not doing this. As already pointed out Gtk and X programming are not related. If you still think they are consider, why we should not merge this with Qt programming, or FLTK programming or someother toolkit programming. --Balbir Thomas 15:12, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

While GTK+ is cross-platform and doesn't need to run under X, GTK+ is most commonly used under X, was originally made for use with X, and still relies on X concepts that need to be understood to write programs that use GTK+. Most of the topics covered in this book will be dealing with libraries and toolkits which happen to be cross-platform, because there more frequently used. Other toolkits or libraries, like Xlib or XCB, are less frequently used directly. This book will be covering GTK+ and Qt, along with other toolkits, regardless of whether or not the merger happens, as most programmers today use them to create programs for X. So why not keep things simple and easy, by letting any contributions to be concentrated in a single work, rather then having work and effort split among different books? --darklama 01:35, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd take it the other way round: merge the X Window Programming relevant chapters to existing books, the Guide to X11 for instance. Looking at the X Window Programming content, I've noticed that most of the chapters (beyond XLib and XCB) present only general information, that is, they haven't developed into real book chapters yet. Moreover, the four last topics (SDL, OpenGL, Qt and GTK+) are not part of the X Window system: SDL, GTK+ and Qt use some X Window libraries when built on X11, but they're cross-platform toolkits and use different libraries on other systems; OpenGL is in no way bound to X Window. As a consequence, I'd move the XLib and XCB chapters to the Guide to X11 book, and the Motif information to Wikipedia (Motif is the only toolkit that depends only on X, so it could stay in an X book, but as a framework it can have its own book). Move the other chapters either to Wikipedia or the existing independant books (OpenGL, Gtk, Qt). I'd add that most of the GTK+ or Qt programmers have never learnt about the X Window concepts, there's no need to learn X to use frameworks built on top of it. Though Qt and Gtk+ were historically based on X libraries, they're now real cross-platform toolkits (especially Qt); many application authors probably choose one of them with that cross-platform idea in mind, whichever the system they choose (or are used to) for main developments. No work will be duplicated when splitting the X Window Programming book because there's no direct relationship between any of them (excepted beetween the first two ones). Moreover, once you've choosed a framework, you don't need to learn (or even know) about the other ones. Some of them allow making direct calls to the X libraries (in which case you'll refer the the X specific book), but they're primarily meant as X abstraction frameworks. --User:Romainbehar

I disagree with splitting this book up. Guide to X11 is for installing and using X11, not for programming under X11. Most of the general information in this book is based on already existing Wikipedia articles. Gtk hasn't had much development yet either, which is why I suggested a merger with this book, while not suggesting any other mergers. While GTK+ or Qt programmers may never touch X, this book isn't for those type of programmers. This book is for programmers wanting to write programs or games that run under X11, whether only one toolkit or library is being used or a mix of toolkits/libraries are going to be used together. This book is intended to be useful in introductory classes that introduce all these libraries, and useful in advance classes in which students are expected to learn how to make window managers, new interface elements, and use libraries/toolkits together. --darklama 17:43, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree. The two have different scope. Gtk and X Window Programming/GTK+, however, share a scope and should be merged. Whether that's under this book or the other (used as a reference here) doesn't really matter. --Swift (talk) 09:48, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Splash pages

Would anyone object to moving the upper half of the main page to /Cover and merge the /Contents with the lower half (the introduction)? I've done this with abandoned books as per the splash page discussion on WB:MOS. --Swift (talk) 10:08, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

There is already a short table of contents listed on the main page that lists each major section of the book. The intent is for /Contents to be a more complete table of contents. The order in which each major section is read should more or less not matter, while chapters in each major section should be read in the order presented. I think this is similar to how Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter is organized. --darklama 18:14, 7 February 2009 (UTC)