[Montellese]

One option is that we (at least temporary) setup a separate internal private forum here for only the developers who volunteer to join this project, you can then also in the future use that internal private forum to communicate with Team-XBMC. Later you can setup a public forum on a other website once you are ready to release the first version and have decided on a name (so that you can get both the .org and .com domains for it).

Ah well a private forum in here would be perfect if the XBMC-Team offers this option. Then nobody would have to register new accounts and as you said the communication with the XBMC-Team would be much easier.

[mafis90]

One option is that we (at least temporary) setup a separate internal private forum here for only the developers who volunteer to join this project, you can then also in the future use that internal private forum to communicate with Team-XBMC. Later you can setup a public forum on a other website once you are ready to release the first version and have decided on a name (so that you can get both the .org and .com domains for it).

I can only say yes

But when we start programming we need a SVN or CVS or ...

[Montellese]

I can only say yes

But when we start programming we need a SVN or CVS or ...

*points at sourceforge*

Btw does sourceforge support some kind of bugtracker or something like trac?

[mafis90]

Yes, you can add a Bug Tracker at options.

[Montellese]

Yes, you can add a Bug Tracker at options.

Long time since I've last used sourceforge... Back then only CVS was available. Now the whole sourceforge page looks totally different.

[Gamester17]

Ah well a private forum in here would be perfect if the XBMC-Team offers this option. Then nobody would have to register new accounts and as you said the communication with the XBMC-Team would be much easier.

The people who have volunteered so far should now see and have access to the new forum: http://forum.xbmc.org/forumdisplay.php?fid=107

[mafis90]

I haven't access to the forum and i am listed at the list of devs.

mafis90

[Montellese]

I get

Montellese, you do not have permission to access this page.

But I'm not in the list of devs yet

[Bram77]

My experience is that cross platform app developmet in C# is far from ideal. Windows.Forms is poorly supported in Mono and GTK# is poorly supported in Windows.
That's one thing, but wouldn't it be ideal to be able to develop the application on all platforms to. After my struggles with MonoDevelop, Glade3 and VC#E2008 I've come to the conclusion that there is only one universal solution that is powerful enough and complete cross-platform compatible. Which is Java and maybe JavaFX. Working with NetBeans makes it so easy to develop cross platform! Both development-wise and running the applications is flawless. Also, there are tons of very usefull libraries for Java and the language is very simular to C#, easy to learn if you're comming from C# or C++. I'm porting the XBMC C# library (http-api communication) to Java now and it's almost copy/paste. I'm not yet at the point of creating an interface, but all looks very promising! Having two options for interface design http://javafx.com/ (which is pretty revolutionairy, but young) or the standard is really cool. Even with hardly any programming experience you can create a nice and shiny interface with animations, video and sound...ect. It feels almost like creating a Cascading Style Sheet. Take a look at the examples! (latest JRE required). The downside to JavaFX development is that it's not yet officially supported in NetBeans for Linux. Eventhough I've managed to install it on my Kubuntu 9.04 development VM.

I love C# by the way! So this isn't about the language itself, but about portability!

The two most important applications I use cross platform and work flawless on both platforms are Eclipse (Aptana, Zend Studio) and OpenOffice. These are worldwide very popular applications and to be honest, I can't think of any (non OpenGL) application that work well on different platforms that are not written in Java. And Netbeans is putting a smile on my face, which is nice to

XbmControl is written using Windows.Form with MS VC# E2008. It wasn't to hard to port to Mono (eventhough I haven't released the version compiled with Mono). But Windows.Forms support in Mono is very incomplete and unstable. After some time I discovered it was a no-go. A little less important, but stilll...WIndows.Forms is ugly on Mono.

XbmControl-Evo is written using GTK#/Glade3 (and Monodevelop). I've stopped development because using GTK# isn't giving me the results on Windows I was hoping for, and GTK# is far from easy to use because of the lack of documentation and the (to me) unlogical strcture of the libraries.

So from my perspective.... Using Java would be real timesaver and make it a true cross-OS app. Maintaining different branches (if necesairy) is easy compared to C#, since you can completely ignore the interface for the differen platforms.

[zitroneneis]

Hi,
I also would like to offer my help as a coder, because I really would love to see this cross platform Media Manager come into existence.
I have to admit that I ain't no coding guru, but I cope with c++,c# (and if I have to Java) quite well.

[Montellese]

That's why I prefer to write my applications in Qt rather than VC++ or VC#.

I once wrote a small Latex supporting chat software to simplify talks about math stuff during my studies. I didn't have to change a single line of code to get it to work on Linux (Gentoo and Ubuntu) and Mac. I just booted Linux in VirtualBox and executed make and got a perfectly working version for my linux-using friends. As neither I nor one of my friends ever considered using a Mac OS I don't know about that.

[Bram77]

Qt is nice, but then the language would have to be C++, right? Which makes it a bit harder for some to participate. Not that C++ would be the best option, cross platform and performance-wise.

[Montellese]

Well I think today most developers working on windows use C#, so I guess it's no big difference whether you use Java or C++. C# is based on both I'd say.

I don't mind using Java either. I'm not so used to it and I haven't used it a lot yet, but I'd be willing to throw myself into it and get to know it better.

And I wouldn't say that performance is worse in C++ than other languages. I'd even say it's better, but I think we could discuss about that point for a while

EDIT: If I remember right there is a Java-based version of Qt as well (same goes for Python), but I'll need to check.

[mafis90]

We plan to seperating the core from the whole interface, so you can create the interface in any language you want.

The biggest question what language for the core ?

[Montellese]

Ah now I remember, the Qt version for Java was called "Qt Jambi" (and the one for Python is "PyQt"). But I guess there are better native Java frameworks than Qt.

Well the core is the part which must be most cross-platform compatible. Wouldn't it be nice to do it in good old C :-P

Like I said I'm most skilled in C/C++ (I'm an embedded systems developer), but I can get along with almost all languages if I spend some time to get going.