Author Topic: Porting question  (Read 10782 times)

TNG999

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Re: Porting question
« Reply #15 on: January 27, 2023, 12:42:53 am »
Ok cool, I can mess around with that kind of thing.

Ok please don't be upset with me...  I've never compiled anything in my life.    What do I need?  What type of existing programs should I be looking for? (Like stuff written in C or ...?) 

I have an ArcaOS 5 system here that I can do whatever I need to with.  I also have Windows 10/11 and Ubuntu systems.

Any suggested reading as well?

Thanks again.

-m

Dave Yeo

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Re: Porting question
« Reply #16 on: January 27, 2023, 04:04:30 am »
Not knowing anything about programming/compiling makes it hard to say where to begin.
As you asked for stuff that compiles on all major platforms, I figured Qt would be a good start.
We do have an old Qtcreator, for Qt4. You could install that along with all the Qt4 stuff that ANPM shows, basically qt4-* and look at its tutorial.
There's pages like https://wiki.qt.io/Qt_for_Beginners but even they're aimed at someone with some programming knowledge. Still it is a start for you and the knowledge pretty well works for all platforms. A lot of the time we have to follow the Linux advice, things like using the package manager (ANPM for us) to install stuff, sometimes the Windows stuff applies more, we use DLL's and drive letters.
Anyways try installing qtcreator along with the Qt4 stuff and play with it. It seems to want to use the examples for testing. I haven't used it myself.
 For some reason it is installed into @unixroot\usr\lib\qtcreator \bin so not on the PATH. Probably best to create a program object for it.

Martin Iturbide

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Re: Porting question
« Reply #17 on: January 27, 2023, 01:23:32 pm »
Hi TNG999

I do not do software programming, but I tested the compiling procedure and wrote this little article to compile some little PM samples with GCC.
"Compiling "OS/2 Presentation Manager Programming" Samples on 2016

From that I tried to compile some other things, with more elaborated "make files", which are text files to script the procedure to compile more complex things (with linked libraries and DLLs).
I went over it on this forum thread.

What is next on my personal "programming wishlist" is to make some time to compile a simple Qt game like Hexalate.

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Martin Iturbide
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TNG999

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Re: Porting question
« Reply #18 on: January 27, 2023, 03:46:44 pm »
Thanks, I"lll look at those as well

TNG999

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Re: Porting question
« Reply #19 on: January 31, 2023, 09:52:11 pm »
Ugh...  I remember again why I'm not a programmer.....   >:(


Neil Waldhauer

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Re: Porting question
« Reply #20 on: January 31, 2023, 10:54:05 pm »
Ugh...  I remember again why I'm not a programmer.....   >:(

It isn't for everyone. You might be able to document how to use an OS/2 program. The skills needed to make a program are different from the skills needed to describe how to use a program.

Long ago I was with a bunch of hard core Unix programmers, and one of them had to use Windows NT. So I looked over at his screen, and it had a full screen command prompt (running vi) and the registry editor open. He had figured out how to kill explore (which normal people would have called the Windows desktop), which was of no use to him.
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Dariusz Piatkowski

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Re: Porting question
« Reply #21 on: February 01, 2023, 04:09:53 am »
Ugh...  I remember again why I'm not a programmer.....   >:(

Well, let's not get discouraged far too easily and/or quickly...there are resources out there.

Take a look at https://archive.org/search?query=os2, pick a book that will ease you into the OS/2 DEV game...say something like:

1) "OS/2 Warp Programming For Dummies"
- don't let the title turn you off either, we all start somewhere

2) "OS/2 Presentation Manager Programming" by Charls Petzold
- this will really do a nice job of walking you through every piece of PM API: building controls, windows, putting content into the window, manipulating it, etc.

3) "OS/2 Warp Presentation Manager for Power Programmers"
- in the meantime this little gem will step into the more advanced features, stuff you might not readily touch each and every time, it spends a good amount of time on each of the building blocks of PM programming: menus, notebooks, even stuff like inter-process communciations, etc.

4) "The Art of OS/2 Warp Programming"
- this is the most up-to-date book AFAIK, the original release covered OS/2 2.1, this one is updated to cover V4 and does a very good job of reviewing everything

Once you understand the OS/2 framework itself you are going to be in a much better position attempting to do some porting, where inherently you'll need to be able to map that "other" framework to our OS/2 model.

Hopefully, if you are lucky, your starting point in the porting effort may be pretty close, and therefore require very little "elbow grease".