mono/mcs/class/System.Windows.Forms/README

System.Windows.Forms README

	by John Sohn ([email protected]) and Miguel de Icaza ([email protected])

	The maintainers:
		Dennis Hayes ([email protected])
		Backup: Miguel de Icaza ([email protected])

	Mailing list:
	
		http://lists.ximian.com/mailman/listinfo/mono-winforms-list

		The address is:

		[email protected].


* Introduction

	Welcome to the System.Windows.Forms implementation for Mono.
	
	This is still an early version of the class library.  The
	plans for this library have changed, the plans to use multiple
	backends is no longer being pursued.
	
	We are now implementing this using the Wine library (because
	Windows.Forms applications require the message handling to be
	compatible with Windows, look up the Control.Wndproc method
	for details).
	
	Currently it is possible to use the Visual Studio solution in
	this directory to build the class libraries, and test the
	sample programs against our implementation.
	
	To run and execute with the Mono runtime on linux, the story
	is more complicated as we need to use the "WineLib" support in
	Wine.

* The Layout

	The layout in this directory has some historical files that you can
	safely ignore, the following are just historical directories:

		Gtk/
		WINElib/

	All of the real code is being done in the same was as it is being done
	in the rest of the Mono assemblies.

* Building System.Windows.Forms for Unix using Wine.

	Since a WineLib application is a Windows application that is compiled under 
	Unix/Linux as a shared library it needs to be started differently than other
	applications. The WineLib application is started as any other Windows
	application running under Wine using the wine command. You cannot simply link 
	in libwine (gcc myapp.c -lwine) to use Win32 functions.
	
	In order to use WineLib/Win32 functions under Mono I have created a small
	"stub" application that embeds the Mono engine inside the WineLib application.
	This is basically a replacement for the "mono" command that can be used
	to call the Win32 API (using WineLib) within an application written for Mono.
	
	To get started I suggest installing Wine and Mono first if they are not
	already installed. I am usually using the latest Wine snapshots built from 
	source and installed under /usr/local. Also be sure to build/use a version of 
	Mono with garbage collection disabled as there is a problem using WineLib with 
	garbage collection enabled (check the mono-list archives for this discussion). 
	You can disable garbage collection when building mono by adding --with-gc=none 
	to the configure command. In the mono directory I build mono as:
	     ./configure --with-gc=none
	
	In the WINELib makefile you may have set these to the appropriate files and/or
	paths on your PC: 
	
	X11R6_INCLUDE=/usr/X11R6/include
	WINE_INCLUDE=/usr/local/include/wine
	WINE_LIB=/usr/local/lib/wine
	LIBMONO=/usr/local/lib/libmono.a
	
	If you type make from the mcs/class/System.Windows.Forms/WINELib
	directory it should build: 
	
	System.Windows.Forms.dll - 
	The current (if largely incomplete) Windows Forms package. 
	
	FormTest.exe, NativeWindowTest.exe, Test.exe - 
	Test applications which link to and tests the System.Windows.Forms.dll 
	
	monostub.exe.so - 
	The WineLib application that starts the Mono/WineLib application. This
	small WineLib application embeds the Mono JIT engine allowing any Mono
	application running in it access to WineLib/Win32 function calls. 
	
	Before starting any of the applications set the LD_LIBRARY_PATH to the
	current directory (so DllImport can find the monostub.exe.so library):
	        export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:.
	
	To start any of the applications you type (from the WINELib directory): 
	        wine monostub.exe.so mono-winelibapp.exe