Integrating Scite as an inlined Win32 child window (in a loadable DLL)

Hello Neil

This actually contains a simple question, closer to the end of the message. 
There's more context to this message than questions.

I was very hesitant to pen this question as the answer should be (probably) 
highly evident to me. However, the cautious part of my brain had reminded 
me of how my prior Win32 controls code needs ongoing maintenance over the 
past 29 years of usage. As such, before I dipped my toes too deeply into 
the water, I thought I'd bounce this simple question off Neil. 

As some prior perspective, about a month ago I had returned to update my 22 
year old simple RichEdit-based script editor. That got me thinking about 
adding "something just a little bit better and with more editing 
functionality". It is hard to believe now but it took me a serious 2 weeks 
of keyword searching to eventually come across Scite. Scite is such an 
obvious solution especially because (1) it is Win32 oriented, (2) it is so 
lovely and simple to compile in VS2019 and (3) I can see that Neil is 
actively maintaining it.

My general and original intent was to create something similar to the Scite 
implementation within 3ds Max and Softimage, for their script editors. 
Python and Lua would be my target languages once I get a binding 
implemented for them. But first I wanted to find a good front-end editor 
without a lot of third party dependencies, and Win32-oriented.

Here is the reason for my posting...

Given my long term experience with Win32 coding I want to keep my own 
changes to a complete minimum, in the long term, when integrating Scite. In 
the simplest of cases, I'd wrap it with my own Win32-based docking window 
and do any optional communications with it via the Director interface. This 
will better suit Neil's constant code updates. It would run in-lined within 
my app as a basic editor (DLL), mostly for myself to use. I don't expect to 
encounter a lot of development resistance to achieve that goal.

On the other hand, for example, in 2mins of review I've seen that 3ds Max 
had modified/tweaked Scite's menus and probably other aspects of the code. 
I'd be fine with doing that but I want to make future code maintenance 
manageable as Neil makes new releases. 

I can make Win32 bend to my whims so I'm open to integrating Scite in any 
manner under the sun. I just wanted to ask Neil what he would consider to 
be the method of choice that he would do himself. I don't want to use 
Scintilla but rather Scite, and mostly unchanged except for menu variations 
and tweaking the various properties files. 

Right now I'm expecting that I'd just simply modify the WinMain() entry 
code so that my docking window encapsulates and controls the start-up 
nature of Scite, as well as deal with some window sizing messages. I did 
start dabbling into that the other night. I'd have to be careful with my 
changes (ie. #ifdef's) so that future code releases from Neil can be easily 
merged. 

Thank you in advance for your suggestions and also for spending decades 
working on this lovely set of core + UI editing features. I see this as a 
long term commitment on my side and hence why I'm being a tad bit careful 
upfront before jumping in the deep end. Prior experience can make 
developers cautious!

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "scite-interest" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected].
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/scite-interest/066e11e6-b151-42da-8cbc-2238a8069dd5n%40googlegroups.com.