Currently, the Windows front end has a number of features not present on the other front ends. My wish is to see any non-Windows-specific features on the other platforms, as well. To that end, there should be at least a platform-independent GUI front end. It seems that a Qt version was worked on a few years ago, and then abandoned. I instead propose a wxWidgets (+other) version. For my own amusement, I have already started implementing some of this. My plan is to just copy the gtk and windows GUIs and all three front ends' features as much as possible, without implementing any new features.
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On the other hand, even if I get something working, will this just be a one man operation? I mean, is there even any desire on the part of currently active developers to switch to something completely different, and end development on the other three front ends (or maybe just the gtk and win32 ones, since the SDL front end is presumably already cross-platform, and may be more desirable than wxwidgets due to smaller size)? I have no intention of forking/maintaining this in the long term.
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I am open to suggestions on what libraries to use. I chose wxWidgets for several reasons, which I am happy to list if alternatives are proposed. Qt in particular is something I don't care for due to the weird licensing and other issues. That doesn't mean I won't use it if that's what the primary vba-m developers think I should use, though.
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Here's a current list of features I would like to see cross-platform, in order of importance:
- link
- A/V recording
- minor changes in state save/restore
- aspect ratio
- debugging tools
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Some of this may require major effort and/or other library dependencies. For example, link would need to use SFML, most likely, and A/V recording some other method (ffmpeg exec was suggested, although I would prefer using libavcodec if possible to avoid platform-specific piping issues).
