Dear users, dear developers, as you may have read, I have been trying to get the FLTK 1 and FLTK 2 branch back together into a single FLTK 3 branch.
THE IDEA ========== I am hoping to get the main features of both versions back into a single release, effectively doubling the number of developers and users for FLTK 3, assuming that we can abandon 1 and 2. But that's exactly where the problem lies. When FLTK 2 was released, only half of the users made the jump, and the other half (including me) stuck with FLTK 1. The last thing I want is splitting our energy once again by supporting THREE versions. This is why I added a compatibility layer to FLTK 3 which makes FLTK 3 source code compatible to 1 and 2. THE STATUS ============ I converted the FLTK1 source code into FLTK3 namespace and added a tiny bit of FLTK2 code. The result is a fully working virtually bug free version of FLTK 3 (which at this point is FLTK 1 in new clothes). I added a wrapper that makes FLTK 1 source code compile with the FLTK 3 library. This is a true wrapper, not just some #define list of new names. I have started a very minimal wrapper that makes FLTK 3 source code compatible to FLTK 2 as well. To verify the effort, all FLTK 1 tests compile and mostly run in this wrapper mode. There are still a lot of bugs though! THE FINDINGS ============== a: FLTK 1 and FLTK 2 are still quite similar in their basic structure b: there are some differences that make life hard - if those features were used c: a big search-and-replace list will get an FLTK 1 program 95% into FLTK 3 code d: a big search-and-replace list will get an FLTK 2 program maybe 60% into FLTK 3 code e: the compatibility layers work, but the F1 layer is still quite buggy, the F1 layer will need a lot of work f: merging F2 features into F3 will also be a lot of work THE QUESTIONS =============== I want to get an idea if FLTK 3 is worth the effort, and if we need the F1 layer and/or the F2 layer. So here are my options: 1: keep F1 and F2 development active, forget about F3 2: abandon F2, continue with F1, forget about compatibility 3: abandon F1, continue with F2, forget about compatibility 4: merge F2 into F3, forget about the compatibility layers 5: merge F2 into F3, continue with the compatibility layers What is it going to be? I think this is a really important point for FLTK. If we decide wrong, and split user groups even more, that would be a disaster! In the end, FLTK is OpenSource, and even if we were to decide to go FLTK 3, I can not keep anyone from continuing with 1 or 2. So if we do decide to go 3, we should all be on board, and all focus on it (possibly ignoring back compatibility). If we ant to stick with 1 and 2, that's fine with me as well, but I can guarantee that I will not make another attempt at FLTK 3. Any questions and opinions are greatly appreciated, - Matthias _______________________________________________ fltk mailing list fltk@easysw.com http://lists.easysw.com/mailman/listinfo/fltk
