
       		      WINGs - WINGs Is Not GNUstep

				   by

			  Alfredo Kengi Kojima 
			
			  kojima@windowmaker.org


   WINGs is a small widget set with the N*XTSTEP look and feel. It's API
is inspired in OpenStep and it's implementation borrows some ideas
from Tk. It has a reasonable set of widgets, sufficient for building
small applications (like a CDPlayer or hacking something like rxvt). It
also has other functions that are usefull for applications, like a
User Defaults like configuration manager and a notification system.

   The library is limited and it's design is a little sloppy, 
so it's not intended to build large or complex applications, like 
anything more complex than a CDPlayer. GNUstep should be used for such
applications.

   Since WINGs is written in C and is sort of low-level it is small
and faster than say, Motif or even Athena. Knowing Xlib will help you to 
workaround some of it's limitations, although you'll probably be able to 
write something like a trivial tic-tac-toe game without knowing much Xlib.

   Some of it's functions are designed to support the Window Maker window
manager (see http://windowmaker.org) In fact, it's primary role is to
support Window Maker. All other uses of it are just an added bonus.

   It will help you to understand the API if you read the ApplicationKit
reference manual, distributed as a PDF by Apple. The function names,
structs and most of the intrinsics are very close to OpenStep classes. 


Internationalization:
---------------------

   WINGs supports display of multibyte characters (kanji etc) without the
to specify any flags (ie: there is no way to disable i18n support).
Change ~/GNUstep/Defaults/WMGLOBAL to set the desired font set.


Widgets provided by WINGs:
--------------------------

- button (command button, radio, switch etc. - all buttons defined in OpenStep)
- label
- textfield
- frame
- window
- popup menu button
- scroller
- selection list
- browser
- slider
- scrollable view
- color well
- split view (only 2 subviews)
- tabbed view

- input box
- file panel
- color panel
- alert panel 

Planned:
--------

- selection (pasteboard like)
- drag&drop

If you think you can code the following, please do. They are needed by
WPrefs.app, but the number of other things I have to do is huge.

- font panel (the UI part is done. Might require a rewrite of the font list
  retrievel code. Might also require a WMFontManager)
- input method support (XIM). I have no idea of how to code it. People who use
different characters than ASCII will have trouble editing menus without it...


Wish list: (I don't have the know-how or time to do them)
---------------------------------------------------------

- text (with support for RTF)
- matrix (like NSMatrix)
- splitviews with more than 2 subviews
- font manager (like NSFontManager)
- finish other wigets
- optimize list scrolling (XCopyArea() the area that's already drawn)
- InterfaceMaker?
- use XSetWMName and XSetWMIconName for the window/icon title setting.
  This requires transforming the received text to a text property with
  the proper encoding.

Copyright
---------

WINGs is copyright (c) Alfredo K. Kojima and is licensed through the GNU
Library General Public License (LGPL).

