checkdigits
commented
2 years ago My first instinct was to respond to this and say "no, this can't be done".
But, you know what, it could be done - just not easily.
Ignoring other likely hiccups in the process such as making sure the CLANG pre-requisites were present on the target Linux machine (they probably would be, but we'd need to look into that) the biggest hurdle is the framework used for the user interface. There are other considerations in connection with the actual controls that are used which might not work in the same way - or at all - on Linux and other non-Windows targets,
The project uses VCL throughout, heavily. VCL is very tightly bound to the Windows API and, as such, is officially a WIndows-only framework.
There could be two ways to resolve the user interface issue:
- Change the UI to use Firemonkey FMX. Or at least produce an alternate user interface and abstract out any UI=bound code so it can work with both the VCL and FMX forms.
- Use an alternative cross-platform framework such as Cross VCL to enable Linux UI support.
Option 1 would give the best overall long-term solution since it would mean it uses a platform technology included with RAD Studio and provided by Embarcadero. It would also mean it might be possible to create a macOS version too.
Option 2 might be a quicker short-term solution since it would effectively require little or no changes to the existing project. The downside is Cross VCL is a commercial third-party product which doesn't have a free option. People might need to pay to have a version which compiled and ran under Linux. It also has the disadvantage that being an independent third-party there would be no official backing from Embarcadero for the solution or incentive from them to make changes to fix anything which didn't work.
I do know KS Dev who produce Cross VCL and I would be prepared to work with them to make a version of Dev-Cpp which would compile using Cross VCL if they were willing to work with me. I could compile the binaries for Linux and make those available as part of this project - but any user wishing to replicate that would probably need to purchase their own copy of Cross VCL in order to compile their own copy from source.
The best option, long term, would be to examine the viability of producing an FMX UI which would then allow the project to be wholly open source for all platforms and buildable with readily-available RAD Studio tools.
I'm willing to look into it - but no matter how urgent you think it is this is likely to take a while, if indeed it is possible at all.
mdziczkowski
pmcgee69
I would like to request that the sources, libraries and programs (including tools) become made in a format that would allow to become used (and sources to become compiled) on the operating systems other then just Windows, like for example Linux.
Explanation
In the current version:
there is no working possibility to compile the sources on Linux systems and there are no pre-compiled binaries for that system
the libraries (aspecially VCL) aren't cooperating with Linux systems
there is no tool to convert the resources from Embarcadero to a format understandable by Linux
the requited header files (mainly VCL) aren't avaliable and without them the most projects can't become compiled on other systems then Windows
Many projects require the libraries and headers from Embarcadero (for example VCL) to become compiled. Without them, the software development is becomming very limited and made dificult.
Many developers can't work at the project because Embarcadero is limited to Windows operating systems only