[HN Gopher] GNUStep now has badges
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       GNUStep now has badges
        
       Author : pabs3
       Score  : 171 points
       Date   : 2023-08-04 16:03 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (multixden.blogspot.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (multixden.blogspot.com)
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | meepmorp wrote:
       | WindowMaker > GNUStep, imo.
        
         | badsectoracula wrote:
         | They are different and not mutually exclusive things. Window
         | Maker is a window manager with a NeXTStep-like look. GNUstep is
         | an application framework.
         | 
         | You can use GNUstep with Window Maker (and many do) but you can
         | also use it with KDE, GNOME, XFCE, FVWM, IceWM, JWM or whatever
         | window manager you like. AFAIK GNUstep also has a Wayland
         | backend so you could also use it with Wayland compositors.
         | 
         | Similarly you do not have to use Window Maker with GNUstep or
         | any ObjC runtime or libraries, just use it by itself as a
         | window manager. Personally i do not use GNUstep at all but i
         | use Window Maker.
         | 
         | (note that Window Maker does create/use a GNUstep directory in
         | the home directory but that is a historical artifact and IIRC
         | in recent versions it can be made to use a directory inside
         | .config instead).
        
       | rismay wrote:
       | Why does this look like it's from the 80's still?
        
         | chasil wrote:
         | The interface is from NeXT OS, which as a company was led by
         | Steve Jobs.
         | 
         | The underlying architecture of NeXT was largely adopted into OS
         | X and iOS.
         | 
         | The GUI appearance evokes nostalgia for those that used it (the
         | very first web browser was written within NeXT).
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXTSTEP
        
           | kzrdude wrote:
           | I would wish they'd pick something based on whiteish
           | background instead of gray (white like the early Mac OS X
           | versions would be nice, don't need pinstripes.)
        
             | badsectoracula wrote:
             | Some people like dark themes, others like light themes, so
             | gray is the middle ground :-P.
             | 
             | FWIW GNUstep is themable so it should be possible to
             | customize it. Though i'm not aware of any that follows
             | modern trends, but at least it is possible to make it kinda
             | sorta like a broken telephone version of early Mac OS X
             | using the Rik theme[0] (the screenshot also seems to be
             | using a custom theme and setup for Window Maker too and
             | judging from the shadows it most likely also uses Compiz as
             | a compositor).
             | 
             | [0] https://github.com/AlessandroSangiuliano/rik.theme
        
         | pram wrote:
         | Because it's the free (like freedom not beer) version of
         | something from the 80s.
        
       | hk1337 wrote:
       | Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges.
        
         | bloopernova wrote:
         | _Thank you_
         | 
         | I was beginning to really feel my age that no one had made that
         | reference.
         | 
         | (It's from the movie "Treasure of the Sierra Madre", which is
         | worth checking out!)
        
           | vondur wrote:
           | I suppose it's sad that my frame of reference is Mel Brook's
           | Blazing Saddles...
        
             | dusty_ayres wrote:
             | Could be worse - your frame of reference could be "Weird"
             | Al Yankovic's _UHF_.
             | 
             | "Badgers? _Badgers?_ We don 't need no stinking badgers!"
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | raverbashing wrote:
       | They should have maybe looked into fixing the anti-aliasing
       | first.
       | 
       | As much as it's a lightweight DE, we're way past the point of CPU
       | capability to render these basically for free, but it seems to be
       | all over the place
        
         | queuebert wrote:
         | Looks great on my 25-year old CRT.
         | 
         | I find it hilarious that we sharpened monitors so now we have
         | to blur the rendering, because heaven forbid we see a pixel.
        
           | NavinF wrote:
           | No, if we had infinite resolution monitors we wouldn't need
           | anti-aliasing.
           | 
           | You gotta bandlimit your signals or you'll see aliasing.
           | That's just how signal processing works. Imagine if your
           | audio player's output voltage jumped between 16bit levels
           | instead of smoothly transitioning. It would sound horrible.
           | That's how bad jaggies look to people who didn't grow up with
           | slow computers
        
             | WesolyKubeczek wrote:
             | Gosh just how did they manage with the CDs and 12-bit
             | audio, like animals.
        
               | NavinF wrote:
               | CDs are 16-bit. Digital audio players have had anti-
               | aliasing filters for as long as digital audio existed
               | because they'd sound horrible otherwise
        
               | meatmanek wrote:
               | With anti-aliasing filters, that's how.
        
             | akira2501 wrote:
             | > if we had infinite resolution monitors we wouldn't need
             | anti-aliasing.
             | 
             | Color is based on frequency. There's an inherent limit to
             | the range of light colors our eyeballs can process.
             | 
             | > You gotta bandlimit your signals or you'll see aliasing.
             | 
             | When changing sampling rates. If the monitors resolution
             | and the font resolution were identical, then would
             | bandlimiting actually have any effect?
             | 
             | > Imagine if your audio player's output voltage jumped
             | between 16bit levels instead of smoothly transitioning. It
             | would sound horrible.
             | 
             | The brain processes sound logarithmically. Is the same true
             | for vision? I mean, I watch movies at 24 frames per second,
             | and yet, I'm usually incapable of perceiving this.
             | 
             | > That's how bad jaggies look to people who didn't grow up
             | with slow computers
             | 
             | Anecdotally.. but if the computer is experiencing a limit
             | in displaying full resolution data to me, I actually don't
             | mind noticing that fact.
        
               | NavinF wrote:
               | You know what I meant by "infinite resolution". Today's
               | monitors are nowhere close to retina (human eye
               | resolution) and even further from being diffraction
               | limited (the color frequency stuff you're talking about)
               | 
               | > If the monitors resolution and the font resolution were
               | identical
               | 
               | Fonts are typically infinite resolution because they are
               | small programs that you execute. Also see
               | https://blog.mecheye.net/2012/12/bytecode/
               | 
               | > The brain processes sound logarithmically. Is the same
               | true for vision?
               | 
               | If you're talking about brightness, it's a cube-root
               | curve: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightness#Relationsh
               | ip_to_valu...
               | 
               | > I watch movies at 24 frames per second, and yet, I'm
               | usually incapable of perceiving this
               | 
               | Film projectors flash the same image multiple times
               | because humans can easily notice 24fps. The lamp flickers
               | and that's why movies are called "flicks". Good monitors
               | flash each frame for only 1ms for the same reason:
               | https://blurbusters.com/faq/motion-blur-reduction/
               | 
               | Try the UFO test: https://www.testufo.com/. If you
               | genuinely can't see the difference between 30/60/120 Hz,
               | you should get an eye exam because that's not normal.
        
         | rbanffy wrote:
         | It's also open-source, so anyone with the knowledge can fix it.
        
           | codehalo wrote:
           | Not GNUStep. They are the absolute worst. Miguel de Icaza
           | tried to work with them, and had to leave to create Gnome.
           | 
           | Look at where they are and where Gnome is now.
           | 
           | Saddest story in all of open source.
        
             | linguae wrote:
             | As someone who was a child during the early days of KDE,
             | GNUstep, and GNOME and who didn't start using Linux until
             | 2004, I'd like to learn more about Miguel de Icaza's
             | attempts to work with GNUstep; I'm familiar with much of
             | GNUstep's history but this is news to me.
        
             | pipeline_peak wrote:
             | I'd say GNU Hurd is even sadder, not that it's a contest.
             | It's a pretty humble world of high effort low output lol.
        
               | NavinF wrote:
               | I can't imagine how that could have gone differently. If
               | Hurd was completed in the 90s, would anyone use a kernel
               | that was slower than linux because it doesn't share data
               | structures between parts of the kernel?
               | 
               | Even today people disable isolation to improve
               | performance even though our desktops are faster than old
               | supercomputers: https://www.microsoft.com/en-
               | us/windows/learning-center/opti...
               | 
               | "Windows 11 security measures include Memory Integrity
               | and Virtual Machine Platform (VMP) to protect against
               | malware, which are features that can also disrupt gaming
               | performance. If you choose to turn these features off
               | before gaming, it can improve your performance and help
               | you focus on the games at hand. Afterwards, it's
               | important to turn them on again since you are opening
               | your PC up to risks while it's less protected. For short
               | periods, you might try turning off your Memory Integrity
               | and VMP to see if you notice a difference."
        
               | pipeline_peak wrote:
               | > If Hurd was completed in the 90s, would anyone use a
               | kernel that was slower than linux because it doesn't
               | share data structures between parts of the kernel?
               | 
               | Perhaps in the server world where uptime is critical.
               | After all, that is Linux's largest market share.
        
             | bandrami wrote:
             | They're usable and Gnome isn't, so there's that
        
           | raverbashing wrote:
           | Yes, and then have their patch turned down for a miriad of
           | reasons
           | 
           | Knowing how to pick your battles is a need in OSS development
        
             | sharikous wrote:
             | A fork then
        
               | zaphar wrote:
               | A fork is _really_ expensive. When the choice is use
               | something else or fork GnuStep then use something else
               | wins the overwhelming majority of the time.
        
               | danuker wrote:
               | Is a fork more expensive than starting anew? How?
        
       | lxe wrote:
       | What can a "modern" OS do than something like NextSTEP absolutely
       | cannot? Aside from the chrome, and performance-bound things like
       | video streaming and gaming, the functionality of what we can do
       | with computers changed very little over the decades.
        
         | pipeline_peak wrote:
         | There's not much more else to push towards, Xerox pretty much
         | figured it all out in the 70s.
         | 
         | End users don't use operating systems, they're a burden of
         | security vulnerabilities and compatibility issues.
         | 
         | If I had to round it out, the tech industry as a whole would
         | prefer we all do everything in browsers over the cloud.
         | 
         | Disregarding freedom and privacy, I would prefer things to be
         | that way.
        
         | bdcravens wrote:
         | Ditto for Windows 95.
        
         | draw_down wrote:
         | Hmm, personally I enjoy both chrome and video streaming but to
         | each their own!
        
           | WesolyKubeczek wrote:
           | Theoretically you could build a self-contained browser and
           | run it there.
           | 
           | In practice, even if you managed, say, to port a modern
           | Firefox and all its baggage down to OpenSSL and even GCC to
           | compile it in a mighty for of herculean effort, it would
           | still likely die of a thousand paper cuts anyway because
           | quite a lot of syscalls would be expected to have evolved
           | since.
        
         | mpweiher wrote:
         | Not much. I had a NeXT cube and the user + developer experience
         | on my M1 Air is largely the same. More portable, obviously, and
         | more colourful. Faster, but not nearly as much faster as it
         | should be, IMHO. Well fortunately I write very little Swift, so
         | at least compile performance is OK, and a lot of the user-
         | noticeable speed improvements come from SSDs.
         | 
         | > video streaming
         | 
         | NeXTStep had NeXTtime, which IIRC was also important in sealing
         | the Apple deal, as Be's big claim to fame was (multi-media)
         | performance, with the for-the-time impressive demo of 4 videos
         | playing simultaneously. Nobody had really thought of it before,
         | but playing 4 videos was also not an issue in NT, so Be-
         | blocked.
         | 
         | https://www.paullynch.org/NeXTSTEP/AppleNeXT.htmld/present.h...
        
         | WesolyKubeczek wrote:
         | Run on more than two screens?
         | 
         | Support modern networking?
         | 
         | Support Unicode in all applications?
        
           | vondur wrote:
           | Good question about the screens. Under OpenStep on PC
           | hardware, I think you can do multiple monitors. I believe
           | TCP/IP was native to NextStep, but doubtful about Unicode way
           | back then.
        
             | WesolyKubeczek wrote:
             | Have there been Matrox drivers for OpenStep?
             | 
             | I don't remember what other multihead graphics cards
             | existed at that time. For multiple video cards, you again
             | had to reach for Matrox, since they were produced in both
             | PCI and AGP variants and I'm unsure about other brands.
        
           | spitfire wrote:
           | In 1990 you could have up to 4 displays on a NeXT Cube + 3
           | NeXTDimension 32bit colour boards. These were 1152x864 32bit
           | colour displays at a time when people were using 80x25 16
           | colour text (likely, wordperfect/Lotus 123), or /maybe/
           | 640x480 16 colour graphics in windows 3.0.
           | 
           | NeXT had full ipv4 support from the start.
           | 
           | Unicode wasn't a thing until after Apple bought them.
           | 
           | One experiment I've done on my own NeXTStation turbo was run
           | equivalent applications on both a NeXT and a modern Intel mac
           | pro. Mathematica, email, Framemaker/affinity publisher all
           | take roughly the same time to load and execute similar tasks.
           | 
           | Yes you can't do 3d, video, or AI on a 33 year old NeXT, and
           | the image files would be smaller, but beyond that you could
           | easily do your day to day work on such a system. It doesn't
           | feel old at all.
        
         | nxobject wrote:
         | I think there a lot of niceties that make laptops and portable
         | computing possible - suspend to disk, advances in scheduling,
         | ubiquitous hotplug support - that I do appreciate, but also do
         | take a bit of architecting.
        
         | mepian wrote:
         | Did NeXTSTEP have any support for threads and their
         | synchronization? POSIX introduced its thread model around the
         | time Apple absorbed NeXT.
        
           | wahern wrote:
           | Most if not all systems had threads before POSIX Threads.
           | POSIX Threads brought a standard interface to replace the
           | chaos that reigned. It took many years for the ridiculous
           | amount of thread API portability cruft in Unix ecosystem
           | software to be excised. You saw something similar with
           | atomics until C11 and C++11 atomics displaced old interfaces,
           | though that switchover seemed to happen much quicker, perhaps
           | because it was principally a userspace issue and you could
           | bring newer toolchains and binaries to older platforms.
        
           | mpweiher wrote:
           | Yes. NeXTSTEP had Mach threads, both kernel and user-space.
        
       | im_down_w_otp wrote:
       | This is cool.
       | 
       | I didn't even know GNUStep was being actively developed or
       | maintained. I'd love to be able to use GNUStep as my primary
       | workstation environment. Does anybody have any recent experience
       | with attempting such a thing?
        
         | mattl wrote:
         | GNUStep isn't a window manager, it's a development framework...
         | think OpenStep, not OPENSTEP.
         | 
         | People use it with WindowMaker but people can also use it with
         | whatever other desktop environment they're using.
        
           | unixhero wrote:
           | Like enlightenment
        
         | toenail wrote:
         | Probably not what you want to hear, but I used it/WindowMaker
         | in the early 2000s, it was alright and worked well on my
         | underpowered machine. Moved on to a more modern environment
         | after maybe two or three years.
        
         | zare_st wrote:
         | Yes.
         | 
         | The bane of old X11 environments and UI toolkits is the
         | DPI/resolution of modern screens. Usually the sweet spot for
         | them is around 1600x1200, usable on Full HD, unusable on 2K.
         | Windowmaker and GNUstep included.
         | 
         | I used Windowmaker with GNOME session running in background for
         | years as a main driver, and went KDE Plasma due to the reasons
         | above.
         | 
         | Windowmaker icons are 64x64 and while there might be a way to
         | increase them, dockapps are rendered in 64x64 max. Devs used
         | the display limit to achieve a certain style, such as LCD
         | dockapps. Useful and charming but it's small and unusable at 2K
         | or above.
         | 
         | So the first thing you're going to get yourself wrapped into
         | are the fonts and font sizes in Windowmaker and GNUstep, and
         | you'll never achieve the same look and feel as default on
         | appropriate resolution.
        
           | badsectoracula wrote:
           | > unusable on 2K. Windowmaker and GNUstep included.
           | 
           | I'm not sure what you find unusable but i'm using Window
           | Maker at 2560x1440 (i assume that is what you mean with 2K)
           | perfectly fine[0].
           | 
           | Though note that the overwhelming majority of monitors out
           | there isn't 2K or greater but 1080p and 768p[1] :-P.
           | 
           | [0] https://i.imgur.com/yaU5OLn.png (my WM setup with a few
           | utilities i made in a custom toolkit that has a WM/NS-like
           | style)
           | 
           | [1] https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/hardware (scroll down
           | to Display Resolution)
        
           | ratmice wrote:
           | I don't develop for GNUstep anymore, but I remember making
           | scalable dock apps possible some decades ago.
           | 
           | You need to configure the size of icon windows in windowmaker
           | WPrefs, the app then needs then to query the [[[NSApp
           | iconWindow] contentView] bounds] that it was created with.
           | There are almost certainly still some dockapps in existence
           | that don't do that and just use hard coded sizes though. I
           | know that the clock app AClock, implements it correctly.
        
       | sharikous wrote:
       | Question: is Objective-C post 2.0 being actively maintained
       | outside of Apple?
       | 
       | Can I use the new features that Apple added in cross platform
       | projects or open source environment like this?
       | 
       | I loved Objective-C very much (yes, really) and I'd like to
       | continue using it after Apple phases it out
        
         | chasil wrote:
         | Previous posts describe Swift in a state of flux, while
         | Objective-C is more stable in most areas. It would not appear
         | that phasing out Objective-C would even be possible.
         | 
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35914330
        
           | MBCook wrote:
           | Apple has the largest Objective-C code based in the world (I
           | would assume).
           | 
           | It's going to take them a long time to covert it. So I don't
           | see them dropping it anytime soon.
           | 
           | It's not recommend for new code (in Apple land) and they're
           | already starting to make features Swift-only.
           | 
           | But they won't stop shipping it any time soon.
        
         | jhatemyjob wrote:
         | The clang/LLVM Objective-C compiler is open source. You can use
         | the same bleeding edge compiler for iOS 17 on Linux for
         | example. So you can use features like Automatic Reference
         | Counting, blocks, etc no problem.
         | 
         | The problem is the frameworks (Foundation, UIKit, AppKit, etc)
         | are closed source. So you either need to create your own
         | frameworks or use something like GNUstep.
        
         | em-bee wrote:
         | well, the one positive thing about apple phasing out
         | Objective-C is that enthusiasts may be more motivated to work
         | on GNU Objective-C to catch up, also considering that doing so
         | is no longer a runaway target.
        
       | netik wrote:
       | and of course, it's ugly. sigh.
       | 
       | Why is it that every OSS desktop has to look like a demo from the
       | 70's?
        
         | eikenberry wrote:
         | Have you looked at modern Gnome or KDE Plasma? They are both at
         | least as petty as MacOS or Windows.
        
           | gapan wrote:
           | I understand "petty" is a typo, but I kind of agree with that
           | meaning too.
        
           | nmstoker wrote:
           | KDE Plasma is great and actually seems to have inspired a
           | bunch of Win11 approaches, so it is possible to get things
           | looking good but there's definitely truth in the sentiment
           | above: a huge chunk of OSS software looking terrible.
           | 
           | There's always the form vs function debate but it's a shame
           | that more doesn't manage to have both form _and_ function if
           | the respective specialists could coordinate
        
           | RamblingCTO wrote:
           | > They are both at least as petty as MacOS or Windows
           | 
           | Yeah, no. I don't think you use macOS/win at all if you say
           | stuff like that. It feels and always has felt rough around
           | the edges.
        
             | em-bee wrote:
             | i still use MacOS and windows from time to time, and i
             | simply have to disagree. using MacOS has just as many WTF
             | moments as i get with Gnome (and KDE too i think, but i
             | haven't used that in a while) a windows just leaves me
             | baffled every time i have to touch it. (
             | https://commadot.com/wtf-per-minute/ )
        
               | tracker1 wrote:
               | The one thing I think is great in Windows is the whatever
               | the active apps bar at the bottom is (taskbar?). Hover,
               | get thumbnails, etc. On mac, I find it kind of painful to
               | juggle a few windows of the same application. Can say the
               | same in Linux as well, some apps don't even show up at
               | all, even though they're running in a window/viewport.
               | 
               | I genuinely like and dislike most OS UIs I've tried. They
               | all have things that irk me. While windows settings has
               | gotten more consistent, it's also all the more painful
               | when you had gotten used to the "old way" of doing things
               | and where to look. If MS executives could just get TF out
               | of their own way on some of the stupidity and force-
               | feeding.
               | 
               | Mac, just feels a bit dated at this point, but the
               | touchpad integration across all apps is great. Not to
               | mention the macbook touchpads being second to none in
               | terms of usability.
               | 
               | Linux, I can shift to almost exactly what I want. There
               | are rough edges and spots you cannot reach via UI, but it
               | mostly works without issue. Been using Budgie as my DE
               | for over a year, fairly customized and like it a lot.
        
               | bloopernova wrote:
               | Not defending macOS here, but switching between windows
               | and managing them is usually performed via Expose, (ctrl-
               | uparrow)
        
               | tracker1 wrote:
               | Thanks, That's a hotkey I wasn't aware of... I know I
               | could use gestures (three finger swipe up), but usually
               | using my mouse.
        
               | em-bee wrote:
               | discovery of hotkeys can be a challenge. despite having
               | used gnome for years now i only recently learned that i
               | can switch windows with alt-esc instead of alt-tab, which
               | is much faster when you have multiple windows of the same
               | app or want to switch back and forth between to windows.
               | and i only found this while searching for an extension
               | that would make switching windows easier.
        
               | nequo wrote:
               | Unity used to show the keyboard shortcuts when you held
               | the Super key:
               | 
               | https://i.stack.imgur.com/JDDku.png
               | 
               | To my knowledge, modern GNOME does not have this which is
               | sad. There's this webpage instead:
               | 
               | https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/shell-
               | keyboar...
        
               | em-bee wrote:
               | the thing is that i would not even have thought of
               | looking there. i was at "switching windows is a pain, how
               | can i make it better" which is not "is there a hotkey to
               | switch windows differently, because why would i even
               | consider that there are multiple ways to switch windows,
               | especially with gnome that kind of has a reputation of
               | removing seemingly unneeded features.
        
               | nequo wrote:
               | It does have that reputation but I've found it very
               | usable.
               | 
               | "Half-maximizing" windows with Super+Left and Super+Right
               | is very handy when I need to see things side-by-side.
               | 
               | Moving windows from one screen to another by pressing
               | Super and doing drag-and-drop, and moving windows across
               | workspaces with Shift+Super+PgUp and Shift+Super+PgDown
               | are also convenient.
        
               | fiddlerwoaroof wrote:
               | Also, if you're at the command-tab picker, the up arrow
               | key will switch to windows of the currently selected app
               | (and left/right arrows will change the currently selected
               | app). The macOS command-tab switcher has a bunch of
               | functionality built in.
        
             | jlund-molfese wrote:
             | Modern KDE is actually _more_ polished than MacOS in
             | specific areas, like allowing a single window to span
             | across multiple monitors in a seamless manner
        
               | jwells89 wrote:
               | Less polished in some areas too, though. It's slowly
               | improving over time but for example fine UI/UX details
               | like whitespace usage, control alignment/placement, and
               | typography have always felt a bit... "off" in KDE as well
               | in most software written with Qt, which I think probably
               | boils down to Qt being more likely to be chosen by devs
               | who are more technically inclined than design or UX
               | inclined.
               | 
               | In my opinion GNOME and GTK apps generally get those
               | details more "correct", though GNOME 3 and up goes way
               | overboard on padding. Strip that padding down with a
               | theme and its design is solid though, and Cinnamon, XFCE,
               | and MATE get these right out of the box with no
               | modifications necessary.
        
               | jlund-molfese wrote:
               | But that's why these "X has a better UI than Y" arguments
               | are silly. I prefer KDE to any other DE because it worked
               | (I now use MacOS and can't run other DEs) for _me_ , and
               | most people who prefer other DEs. That's OK. They all
               | have different strengths and weaknesses (customization,
               | resource usage, ability to run on certain OSes, high DPI
               | support, etc).
        
             | nerdponx wrote:
             | I use both and I think KDE looks and feels great.
        
         | pjmlp wrote:
         | It would be great if Xerox PARC UI was already that advanced in
         | the 70's, or UNIX's twm.
        
         | HeckFeck wrote:
         | Call me cantankerous but I'd rather UI paradigms were frozen in
         | this era. And it's 90s, not 70s ;)
        
         | mepian wrote:
         | I find it much more appealing than any of the modern "flat"
         | UIs. GNUstep's prototype NeXTSTEP popularized this grey 3D look
         | in the early 90s.
        
         | linguae wrote:
         | The desktop and UI conventions are largely inspired from
         | NeXTstep, which is from the late 1980s and was considered ahead
         | of its time. However, there is nothing preventing the use of
         | alternative designs. One example is the Etolie project from the
         | late 2000s and early 2010s, which used the GNUstep API but
         | didn't rely on NeXT-style UI conventions:
         | 
         | http://etoileos.com/etoile/
         | 
         | If GNUstep gains traction, there will almost certainly be a
         | project to create a modern desktop. I personally like the
         | NeXTSTEP UI, but I wouldn't mind something new.
        
         | anthk wrote:
         | OSX it's as ugly as GNUStep/NeXTStep. Search for the Mastodon
         | post on patching OSX to disable Aqua on MAC OS X < 10.5, and
         | you'll see how they kept the exact same NeXTStep/GNUStep
         | widgets. I am not trolling, Google/DDG it.
        
           | cassonmars wrote:
           | This could not be found on either google or ddg. Link?
        
             | gattilorenz wrote:
             | https://mastodon.social/@stroughtonsmith/110708615280659758
        
           | neilalexander wrote:
           | Next time please provide a link.
        
           | em-bee wrote:
           | apart from calling it ugly i can confirm that. early OSX was
           | 100% NeXTStep with a changed style. i loved it. MacOS now is
           | really very much a modernized version of that.
        
         | pipeline_peak wrote:
         | I recommend a brief read on GNUStep before looking at a picture
         | and going "blah ugly, bad!"
        
           | anthk wrote:
           | Also, some GUI on Mastodon showed how OSX would look without
           | Aqua by patching some libraries, and it show up the same
           | literal ugly interface from GNUStep/NextSTep. Literally the
           | same, with the grey rectangles.
        
             | WesolyKubeczek wrote:
             | You could see the transition in OSX developer previews.
             | Some apps would retain the old look, or icons.
        
             | pipeline_peak wrote:
             | Is this what you're referring to?
             | https://mastodon.social/@stroughtonsmith/110708615280659758
        
               | anthk wrote:
               | Yes, that. Thanks.
        
         | hollerith wrote:
         | I prefer the looks of Gnome over MacOS, particularly the text.
        
         | mseepgood wrote:
         | Because developers are not graphic designers.
        
         | nerdponx wrote:
         | Some people like the ugly retro look. You can make KDE look
         | slick and modern if you want, but some people want to make it
         | look like Windows 95.
        
           | em-bee wrote:
           | every few years i go and search for a NeXTStep theme for
           | gnome or kde. (i also look at GNUstep but switching the whole
           | desktop environment is more effort, since the needed packages
           | are not easily available, and the apps i use do not have
           | GNUstep alternatives either, so i am struggling a bit not
           | knowing how to proceed)
        
         | cxr wrote:
         | > it's ugly. sigh.P Why is it that
         | 
         | Because you haven't sent the patches that would make it
         | prettier (e.g. ones that would make it as pretty as, say, Mac
         | OS).
        
         | badsectoracula wrote:
         | > Why is it that every OSS desktop has to look like a demo from
         | the 70's?
         | 
         | You need some unixporn[0] in your life.
         | 
         | Also people have different tastes and preferences and like the
         | NeXTStep or Win95 or OS/2 or BeOS or Classic Mac or whatever
         | look.
         | 
         | [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/
        
       | Mesopropithecus wrote:
       | The thing I love about HN is that enthusiast stuff like this
       | makes it to the front page. <3
        
       | rbanffy wrote:
       | Is there a guide somewhere on how to write software for GNUStep
       | in a way it's also compatible with macOS?
        
         | koito17 wrote:
         | These are called "Renaissance apps" by GNUstep users. They are
         | apps designed such that you can run them on both GNUstep and
         | Cocoa. There used to be a tutorial out there, but the site is
         | gone now. Here is an archive link to it:
         | https://web.archive.org/web/20180125122828/http://www.gnuste...
        
           | asveikau wrote:
           | I haven't followed gnustep in a long time, but I thought
           | renaissance was a library that was an alternative to NIB
           | files, with an XML format.
           | 
           | Back when I wrote some small apps, it was very easy to target
           | Mac with the GNUstep makefile package. That could build on
           | Mac without any extra work on the build side. I would
           | sprinkle a lot with #ifdef __APPLE__ when the APIs differ, on
           | a case by case basis. A lot of things (most?) work on both
           | without modification, it just depends how new the API is.
        
         | jhatemyjob wrote:
         | I assume you meant to ask "how to build" and not "how to
         | write", since writing the Objective-C code is trivial since
         | it's all just AppKit and there's documentation on Apple's
         | website for that.
         | 
         | Building for both GNUstep and macOS is difficult. The problem
         | is, macOS wants you to use Xcode and GNUstep wants you to use
         | their weird build system. In order to build software that is
         | compatible with both GNUstep and macOS you will either need
         | need to have two parallel build systems (one GNUmakefile and
         | one Xcode project) or use a custom build system.
         | 
         | Personally I think GNUstep's build system is stupid, and I
         | don't like using Xcode, so I lean more towards a custom build
         | system. Sounds insane I know but it really isn't that bad.
         | Compiling and running a Cocoa application on macOS pretty much
         | boils down to this:                   clang main.m -framework
         | Cocoa         ./a.out
         | 
         | I don't remember how to do it for GNUstep. It's been a few
         | years. Their GNUmakefile thing is REALLY weird, they have all
         | these Makefile macros you need to import and they try to
         | abstract all of this stuff away. Using Makefile macros. It's
         | horrible. I asked ChatGPT and it generated this:
         | include $(GNUSTEP_MAKEFILES)/common.make
         | APP_NAME = YourAppName         YourAppName_OBJC_FILES = main.m
         | YourAppClass.m         YourAppName_RESOURCE_FILES = Info-
         | gnustep.plist                  include
         | $(GNUSTEP_MAKEFILES)/application.make
         | 
         | I would make a basic GNUmakefile, then run it with `V=1` (or
         | `VERBOSE=1`? i forgot the name of the environment variable) to
         | get the actual terminal commands its running, extract those,
         | put those in your one-liner custom build script and be done
         | with it
        
           | mpweiher wrote:
           | Or you use buildtool to build Xcode projects with GNUstep:
           | 
           | https://github.com/gnustep/libs-xcode
           | 
           | MPWFoundation, Objective-S and related all build on both
           | macOS and GNUstep without buildtool. Once you have the
           | GNUmakefiles they are not that hard to keep in sync.
           | 
           | https://gitlab.com/mpwmo/ObjectiveSmalltalk/-/blob/master/GN.
           | ..
           | 
           | https://gitlab.com/mpwmo/MPWFoundation/-/blob/master/GNUmake.
           | ..
           | 
           | https://gitlab.com/mpwmo/MPWFoundation/-/tree/master/GNUstep.
           | ..
        
         | bandrami wrote:
         | They're source-compatible, so if you write it for GNUStep you
         | should also get a functioning macOS application if you build it
         | with that target (you just won't get whatever they call Carbon
         | and Cocoa nowadays).
        
         | tedge wrote:
         | I'm the developer of PikoPixel, a cross-platform Mac/Linux/BSD
         | pixel-art editor.
         | 
         | PikoPixel was initially written for Mac, and GNUstep saved me a
         | huge amount of work from having to completely rewrite it for
         | Linux/BSD.
         | 
         | However, it was still a significant effort:
         | 
         | * GNUstep's an implementation of the Cocoa framework only, it
         | doesn't include any other macOS frameworks.
         | 
         | * The same source-code & UI resources can produce different
         | behaviors & visuals between the different platforms. This is
         | due to different Cocoa implementations, some missing
         | functionality on GNUstep, different system fonts, different
         | window managers & desktop environments (Linux/BSD have many of
         | them, each with their own quirks), etc.
         | 
         | A cross-platform Mac/GNUstep app is definitely doable -
         | PikoPixel is now available in many Linux distro repositories
         | (Ubuntu Studio even preinstalls it as a default graphics app) -
         | but expect to spend significant effort correcting platform
         | differences (depending on the app).
         | 
         | I'd suggest getting started by spinning up a VM, installing a
         | GNUstep dev environment on it, then downloading some GNUstep
         | app sources & building them.
         | 
         | PikoPixel's homepage links some build scripts for Debian &
         | Fedora that will install both a GNUstep dev environment and
         | PikoPixel: https://twilightedge.com/mac/pikopixel/
         | 
         | You can also browse PikoPixel's sources online at the Debian
         | GNUstep team's mirror repository:
         | https://salsa.debian.org/gnustep-team/pikopixel.app
         | 
         | (Note: PikoPixel's fixes & workarounds for the platform
         | differences on GNUstep are found in the various source files
         | that begin with PPGNUstepGlue*).
        
       | pshirshov wrote:
       | Holy moly, undeads in action.
        
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