wxWidgets/docs/html/wxbook.htm
Julian Smart ad90972f27 Some BC++ fixes
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wxWindows Book
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<a href="#about">About</a> |
<a href="#participants">Participants</a> |
<a href="#publication">Publication</a> |
<a href="#suggestions">Suggestions</a> |
<a href="#format">Format</a> |
<a href="#contents">Contents</a>
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<H3><a name="about">About the wxWindows book</a></H3>
Discussions have been taking place on the wxwin-developers list
about collaboratively writing a wxWindows book. The book will
not include the API reference, though this could be a
separate project. The book will be accompanied by a CD-ROM with
wxWindows and its documentation. The book will initially be
available on-line, and when enough is done we will look for a
publisher.<P>
There will also be a separate small booklet which can easily be printed
out and which gives an overview of wxWindows facilities by taking
the reader through a single worked example. Guillermo Rodriguez
Garcia has volunteered to write this, and will use his Life!
demo to illustrate it.<P>
Goals for the book:<P>
<ol>
<li> to allow users to become accomplished wxWindows developers rapidly;
<li> to be useful over a longer period than just the first few weeks, since
there are a lot of complex areas to address and not all features will be
used up-front in a project;
<li> to promote wxWindows to a wider audience;
<li> to make at least some money for the authors.
</ol>
<P>
Audience: beginners + experienced wxWindows users, but with reasonable C++
knowledge.<P>
It is suggested that any financial return from the book be allocated on a points system,
with a predefined number of points for chapters, indexing, editing, proof-reading etc.<P>
<hr>
<H3><a name="participants">Participants</a></H3>
So far, the following people are interested in taking part in this project:<P>
<ul>
<li><a href="mailto:julian.smart@ukonline.co.uk">Julian Smart</a> -
editor and coordinator of the project; introductory chapter, some other
chapters.
<li><a href="mailto:guille@iies.es">Guillermo Rodriguez Garcia</a> - Separate tutorial booklet;
communication classes (wxSocket, wxXXXServer, some protocol stuff); timing and timers.
<li><a href="mailto:robin@alldunn.com">Robin Dunn</a> - wxPython chapter.
</i>
<li><a href="mailto:zeitlin@dptmaths.ens-cachan.fr">Vadim Zeitlin</a> - drag and drop chapter?
<li><a href="mailto:slavik2@czn.cz">Vaclav Slavik</a> - wxHTML section.
<li><a href="mailto:gtasker@fastpicsystems.com">George Tasker</a> - database chapter.
<li><a href="mailto:moreno@mochima.com">Carlos Moreno</a> - wxImage, wxBitmap.
<li><a href="mailto:Shiv@pspl.co.in">Shiv Shankar Ramakrishnan</a> - wxWindows advocacy, convincing your manager,
container classes and strings, comparison with STL
<li><a href="mailto:markusneifer@my-Deja.com">Markus Neifer</a> - user-defined events.
<!--
<li><a href="mailto:csomor@advancedconcepts.ch">Stefan Csomor</a>. The sequence of events i.e. which action provokes which event sequence,
this is implicit for the use on MSW, but very important for other systems; and porting to new platforms
-->
<!--
<li><a href="mailto:tomr@scitechsoft.com">Tom Ryan</a>, SciTech Software.
-->
<!--
<li><a href="mailto:karsten@phy.hw.ac.uk">Karsten Ballueder</a>. Short tutorials on some useful
GNU tools, like autoconf/configure/make, programming
strategies, etc.
-->
<!--
<li><a href="mailto:mheck@www.surveyorcorp.com">Matt Heck</a>, SurveyorCorp Inc.
<i>
<ol>
<li>a case study of how and why we've used wxWindows at Surveyor Corp., and
how it's worked out so far;
<li>an appendix something similar about how to use wxLIVID for video capture and display;
<li>proofreading
</ol>
-->
</ul>
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<H3><a name="publication">Publication</a></H3>
We should have a substantial chunk of wxBook done before we approach a publisher,
because with the risks of multiple author
<!--
Tom Ryan originally wrote:<P>
<PRE>
Hi Guys,
I just wanted to let you know that I have spoken with officials here
at California State University, Chico and they are potentially
interested in publishing a book on wxWindows! A wxWindows
book would give wxWindows a great deal of exposure.
These discussions came out of the fact that CSUC wanted to
switch from MFC to wxWindows in their GUI programming classes,
but there was not a book available for students to work with.
I was thinking that the first edition could be primarily the reference
documentation combined with a basic wxTutorial and examples. In
this case, it would be fairly straightforward to get something out
initially and then we could take it from there.
</PRE>
<p>
<a href="mailto:benles@powernet.net">Ben Allfree</a> has also expressed an interest
in publishing a wxWindows book, and distributing it via Amazon. Ben was thinking
in terms of a quickie job using the existing reference manual.<P>
Another publishing name to think of is O'Reilly. They would probably give us a lot
of guidance for style, formatting, etc.<P>
<a href="mailto:Roald.Ribe@winlink.no">Roald Ribe</a> writes:
"<a href="http://www.bruceeckel.com/javabook.html" target=_new>Thinking in Java</a>
is published both as a PDF for internet (by the author) and in print by Prentice Hall."<P>
-->
<hr>
<H3><a name="suggestions">Suggestions and comments</a></H3>
<ul>
<li>Chapter on converting from MFC. (Julian Smart)
<li>A chapter on why some inconsistencies are almost always going to show up in a
multiplatform toolkit, how to avoid them, how to deal with when you have
no choice, and (if wxBook explains the internals or philosophy of
wxWindows at all) how wxWindows attempts to minimize the number we
encounter. (Matt Heck)
<li>Creating the shortest possible path to writing "Hello World" from scratch in wxWindows. (Matt Heck)
<li>How will royalties for subsequent editions be shared out? (Tom Ryan)
<li>"My personal feeling is that this project will wind up being developed
by a small team, led by an editor that will wind up doing about half
of the total amount of work." (Tom Ryan)
</ul>
<hr>
<H3><a name="format">Text format</a></H3>
This depends partly on the publisher, but one possibility is to target Word but have
submissions in a number of formats including Latex. We should eventually write a style
and formatting guide.<P>
<hr>
<H3><a name="contents">Contents</a></H3>
This is open to suggestion.<P>
Last year, <a href="mailto:mlorenz@visionx.com">Mike Lorenz</a> of <a href="http://www.visionx.com">VisionX</a>
suggested this
<a href="http://www.visionx.com/wx/tutorial_outline.htm">tutorial outline</a>, which could
be a good starting point.<P>
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