[CREATE] Hello from Audacity

[Dominic Mazzoni]

Nicu Buculei wrote:
>> One reason that Audacity has in the past resisted suggestions that we 
>> coordinate with other free software projects on things like icons is 
>> that the large majority of other free software projects seem to be 
>> Linux-focused.  Along those lines, they tend to create Linux-centric 
>> UIs, conforming maybe to GNOME or KDE - but they don't work well on 
>> the Mac or Windows.  Now, Audacity is very popular on Linux, 
>> especially among our developers - but we take pride in the fact that 
>> Audacity looks and feels very much like a native application on 
>> Windows and Mac OS X. To be specific, the icons and stuff that work on 
>> Linux just don't work on the Mac or on Windows XP.
> 
> Inkscape and Gimp are already running on Linux, Windows and Mac, Scribus 
> is on Linux and Mac with a Windows port under way, probably Krita will 
> take the same path along with KOffice at some point, so i think is 
> possible to find some common ground.
> Also, think about the possibility to use Create as a place to 
> collaborate with other developers of audio (and maybe video) FOSS 
> applications.

Unfortunately Inkscape and Gimp use GTK, which only works on the Mac 
under X11.  This means that they don't use the top-level menu bar, don't 
create dock icons, don't use the standard Mac open/save dialogs, don't 
use mac-like scrollbars, buttons, etc.

On Windows, it's not quite as bad - but still, because GTK uses its own 
buttons and listboxes and such, they don't share the same theme chosen 
by the Windows user, and programs such as screenreaders fail on them.

Qt/KDE applications are different - Qt is fully supported on Mac and 
Windows, and while I have a few minor issues with its implementation, 
Qt-based apps coexist quite nicely with other Mac/Win applications, 
taking on nearly all of the look and feel.

Anyway, I'm not dismissing the possibility of common ground.  I'm just 
concerned that many existing projects fail to take into account the look 
and feel of Windows and Mac applications and how to design programs that 
conform to those.

- Dominic