Hi,
Ethan C wrote:
I've always thought that it would be good to try to port macOS
applications to GNUstep, for a few reasons:
* It shows that GNUstep is complete enough to port real applications
* It helps show us in which areas we are weak or strong at
* It could potentially get us new users, especially for users who
are migrating from macOS to GNU/Linux or who use multiple
operating systems regularly
Apps are always good, since they are a testbed. Ported apps have the
addition benefit of "showcasing" and "reference testing" plus
interoperability.
I do use GNUMail also on Mac even if I don't "need" it on the MacOS as
much as on GNUstep. Or play the same game like GShisen.
Or, as a humble comparison, I find it useful to open a drawing done in
Graphos on the mac. Especially because printing and PDF generating works
correctly only there!
The current wishlist on the wiki does not really have many good ideas
for existing applications to port, so I looked for some high-quality
Objective-C + AppKit applications that might be interesting (see the
wishlist below). I'd like to hear your thoughts.
That wishlist is user contributed, didn't remember it - it doesn't even
contain the "classical" wishes we had for twenty years. It expresses
more the sum of individual user needs, quite interesting in any case. On
Mac (or windows) you want to complement existing commercial apps,
distinguishing somehow. On GNUstep (and generally Linux) we lack them,
so there are primary needs.
There are a couple of "closed source" apps we always wanted to have. The
old Office suite!
Certain old and news terminals.
Personally I'd loved to have the Stone Design tools. Of OpenStep
heritage they worked really well and I did offset prints with it for
years. I contacted the author but there was no interest. Even if old,
they would be amazing and also a very good "test" - since I assume it is
quite "classic" in coding. He has also other amazing apps, but probably
does more farming nowadays.
Except editors I can think of few open source Mac apps I feel the need for.
I would think that a GNUstep native version of GIMP and Inkscape (or
equivalent) would help a lot.
Sure PRICE and Graphos are my children and are nice, but the
from-scratch approach has it limits.
Compatibility with existing formats is important. For GIMP there would
be Seashore you cited, for Inkscape (or other XML vector editor) things
are harder.
So far, I think that iTerm2 would probably be one of the most complex
things to do, but it would probably be quite popular. TextMate was
formerly extremely popular, but is not as popular anymore as the v2
rewrite took much longer than expected. SubEthaEdit is quite
innovative, but was quickly overtaken in popularity by TextMate.
For Editors, I use nowadays VIM and Emacs everywhere.
Emacs cano do GNUstep but it is always hit and miss, having it stable
working an dintegrated would be amazing.
GVim has an "old" and "new" Mac support, either one would be itneresting
for GNUstep and have it native.
Riccardo
