win32 going away

[Christopher Stafford]

Kevin M Stange wrote:
> Torrey McMahon wrote:
>   
>> So I'm a total noob when it comes to windows but if someone, like Ethan, 
>> says "the removal of win32 support in Pidgin" does that mean that 
>> windows support goes away or just some set of library calls or ???
>>     
> Win32 will not be going away at this point.  The idea would be to
> eliminate Win32 releases of Pidgin, not the removal of Win32 support
> from libpurple.  The idea would be that a replacement client would exist
> that implements a user interface native to Win32, eliminating the
> dependency on GTK+.
>   
It seems like a strange time to consider this when GTK support in
windows is getting quite solid. In fact I'd go as far as to say that I
find the windows port to be every bit as good and usable an app as it is
on linux. I'm sorry that various developers who don't use it on win32
seem to believe it is deficient in some way.

If there was a strongly adopted widget set on win32, like GTK on Gnome,
or whatever the twirly things are on OS/X, then there would be reason to
have a non-GTK native app, but in fact with the number of skinned
applications and different toolkits in use, windows is starting to
appear like a random mash of widget sets where Pidgin fits in just fine.

I don't know how the developers who are actually putting in the time to
support windows feel about it but my impression is that the Pidgin (as
opposed to Purple) windows dev isn't too painful to maintain (although
it was probably no fun to set up in the first place).

As to support, users from minority Linux distros seem like far more of a
support issue in #pidgin, if only because they are forever trying to
compile it without deps, and rarely accept that they are wrong.

Although of course I like the psychic plugin, mostly use MSN and once
chuckled at somebody's custom emoticon, so my opinion probably counts
for little.

chris