For those who aren't familiar[1], it's part of RemObjects' Elements[2] suite, which allows you to use and mix several different popular languages in addition to the Pascal-based Oxygene across Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android etc.
I mean, deploying on Linux is good, but not having an IDE that runs on Linux is a disappointment.
(email addr is in my HN profile)
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As a data point, I develop with Go professionally and use Linux (exclusively) both at home and at work. Some of my developer team mates at work use macOS, and others use Windows.
Many of the other places I've worked have been fairly Linux (and/or macOS) heavy too. Not so much Windows heavy in the last few years, and I personally expect the trend of less Windows usage to continue due to Microsoft continuing to degrade its user experience.
hehe working with this TV library scratches my nostalgia itch :D
it probably saved me from futile efforts like writing apps for GEOS or joining the one person Hurd team.
I'm actually working on my own .NET wrapper, too. I don't think I'm as far as you, though. I'm mimicking the Windows Forms API as closely as possible and I want to have a drag-and-drop TUI designer.
Some examples of my wrapper: https://github.com/brianluft/terminalforms/tree/main/src/Ter...
I did most of the hard integration work on the C++ side: https://github.com/brianluft/terminalforms/tree/main/src/tfc... -- exporting simple C functions that I can call with P/Invoke so that the C# side is mainly about organizing into classes. It took a couple tries to find a design that didn't fall apart when I got into more complicated stuff. Initially I went too hard into "everything that you can do in C++ should be possible in C#"--this was maddeningly complex. I was using placement new to stick the C++ objects into C# buffers, you could effectively subclass the C++ classes from the C# side, it was getting way too involved. I switched to a much more direct and less flexible approach. I decided the flexibility should be on the C# side.
I'm curious how your P/Invoke system works.
(Joking aside, I actually hope great cooperation, not competition... it's what open source is for. Seeing someone else is making a .Net wrapper as well is just plain awesome and I wish you the best. I really like the different API style.)
As a stretch goal, you might try to integrate https://github.com/magiblot/turbo too. This is a Scintilla-based text editor control implemented in tvision. We worked together to make it embeddable in other programs (because I wanted it in mine). Example usage: https://github.com/tmbasic/tmbasic/blob/master/src/tmbasic/C...
Also, I assume you know about the Turbo Vision Pascal and C++ books. They're really helpful. I transcribed both books to Markdown for easy searching if you want it.
That editor is really impressive. I'll see if I can wrap it too! Can I ask what your editor integration is for, what project?
I know the books exist, but I haven't read them. It's possible I even had a copy as a child - we had many of them but I never wrote Turbo Vision code, just Turbo Pascal in plain text or graphics modes. Then I moved on to Delphi. I would love to find both in MD - are they publicly available?
I realised I never answered your question about P/Invoke: I wrote (as in got an AI to generate) a flat C wrapper using the handle pattern, and then reimplemented classes back in Oxygene Pascal. I'm experimenting with new controls now, eg a tab/page view and others. Each is just a class that has its own view, plus some management extras, such as what max rendering it supports (I'm adding DOS character sets through to Powerline in rendering tabs, borders, etc.) It's all churning quite a bit as I do something, realise it may not be the best approach matching the TV model, rethink - learning a lot about TV's architecture at the time - so no more solid answer than that currently simply because it may be outdated tomorrow :)
Rather than focusing heavily on inheritance, I'm leaning more towards soft interfaces (duck typing) and wrapping via composition. This is just personal preference. But the concept is, if something looks like it is able to hold controls, it is treated as though it can hold controls, for example.
I've sent you an email with the Turbo Vision books in Markdown, if you didn't receive it, hit me up via the email in my profile.
The wrapper gives a higher level API, and solves some of the things like the rather antique palette API (or wraps it), is adding layout, etc.
```
var lMenuBar := new MenuBar;
```(This is Oxygene, currently compiling to .Net. Can be used from any .Net language of course, even Go or Swift with our toolchain, but as an assembly, consumed by anything. Using PInvoke for the native TV binaries.)
Heavily in progress :D The repo is still private and I'm working on things like basing palettes on the surfaces controls are placed on today and tomorrow. Todos are cleaning up layouts, adding a few more basic (for today) missing controls, etc.
I had experimented with libraries like Terminal.GUI, which was (still is?) in the middle of a v2 transition and really difficult to get behaving without bugs. And Claude is a great lesson about TUIs and libraries that have been built without real terminal consideration -- lots of what not to do. I found myself missing Turbo Vision and thinking, why not just have a modern version? Then I found this repo, saw it was updated for Unicode, etc... I am very grateful to the author.