Re: Wishlist of apps to port?

Hi,

Ethan C wrote:
>
> I've always thought that it would be good to try to port macOS 
> applications to GNUstep, for a few reasons:
>
>   * It shows that GNUstep is complete enough to port real applications
>   * It helps show us in which areas we are weak or strong at
>   * It could potentially get us new users, especially for users who
>     are migrating from macOS to GNU/Linux or who use multiple
>     operating systems regularly
>

Apps are always good, since they are a testbed. Ported apps have the 
addition benefit of "showcasing" and "reference testing" plus 
interoperability.
I do use GNUMail also on Mac even if I don't "need" it on the MacOS as 
much as on GNUstep. Or play the same game like GShisen.

Or, as a humble comparison, I find it useful to open a drawing done in 
Graphos on the mac. Especially because printing and PDF generating works 
correctly only there!

> The current wishlist on the wiki does not really have many good ideas 
> for existing applications to port, so I looked for some high-quality 
> Objective-C + AppKit applications that might be interesting (see the 
> wishlist below). I'd like to hear your thoughts.
>

That wishlist is user contributed, didn't remember it - it doesn't even 
contain the "classical" wishes we had for twenty years. It expresses 
more the sum of individual user needs, quite interesting in any case. On 
Mac (or windows) you want to complement existing commercial apps, 
distinguishing somehow. On GNUstep (and generally Linux) we lack them, 
so there are primary needs.

There are a couple of "closed source" apps we always wanted to have. The 
old Office suite!
Certain old and news terminals.

Personally I'd loved to have the Stone Design tools. Of OpenStep 
heritage they worked really well and I did offset prints with it for 
years. I contacted the author but there was no interest. Even if old, 
they would be amazing and also a very good "test" - since I assume it is 
quite "classic" in coding. He has also other amazing apps, but probably 
does more farming nowadays.

Except editors I can think of few open source Mac apps I feel the need for.

I would think that a GNUstep native version of GIMP and Inkscape (or 
equivalent) would help a lot.
Sure PRICE and Graphos are my children and are nice, but the 
from-scratch approach has it limits.

Compatibility with existing formats is important. For GIMP there would 
be Seashore you cited, for Inkscape (or other XML vector editor) things 
are harder.


> So far, I think that iTerm2 would probably be one of the most complex 
> things to do, but it would probably be quite popular. TextMate was 
> formerly extremely popular, but is not as popular anymore as the v2 
> rewrite took much longer than expected. SubEthaEdit is quite 
> innovative, but was quickly overtaken in popularity by TextMate.
>

For Editors, I use nowadays VIM and Emacs everywhere.
Emacs cano do GNUstep but it is always hit and miss, having it stable 
working an dintegrated would be amazing.
GVim has an "old" and "new" Mac support, either one would be itneresting 
for GNUstep and have it native.



Riccardo