Sunrise and linux

[tovarish]

Hi Laurens

Will sunrise work in linux if i use the commandline to convert documents. Document manipulation is not really needed but i want to use a linux box for scheduling downloads.

thanks
tovarish

[hacker]

Originally Posted by tovarish

Hi Laurens

Will sunrise work in linux if i use the commandline to convert documents. Document manipulation is not really needed but i want to use a linux box for scheduling downloads.

No, his current choice of toolkit prohibits it from working on Linux at all (or any other non-Windows environment, for that matter).

[Laurens]

Originally Posted by tovarish

Will sunrise work in linux if i use the commandline to convert documents. Document manipulation is not really needed but i want to use a linux box for scheduling downloads.

No, this won't work. Sunrise contains some Windows-specific hooks that will prevent it from working on other platforms. The reason I'm not supporting other platforms is because my own product will rely heavily on HotSync and Windows is the only platform I can develop conduits on ATM.

[Laurens]

Originally Posted by hacker

No, his current choice of toolkit prohibits it from working on Linux at all (or any other non-Windows environment, for that matter).

That's not entirely true. The Windows dependencies could easily be removed to make Sunrise cross-platform. The UI would be dog slow under GTK and ugly under Motif, but it would still work.

I might expand support to other platforms after the 1.0 release of my own product. (Most likely that would be Mac OS X.)

[hacker]

Originally Posted by Laurens

That's not entirely true. The Windows dependencies could easily be removed to make Sunrise cross-platform.

Agreed, there are at least 7 cross-platform toolkits you could use to your advantage.

The UI would be dog slow under GTK and ugly under Motif, but it would still work.

Not only is that patently false, its pure FUD. The "slowness" is due to incorrectly writing your application, not the toolkit itself. There are plenty of VERY snappy gtk+ applications running under Win32 and other environments, without any "dog slow" behavior as you claim.

gtk+ isn't slow, and there's no reason to use Motif unless you really want to (and again, it too isn't "dog slow").

Only a bad architect blames his hammer.

I might expand support to other platforms after the 1.0 release of my own product. (Most likely that would be Mac OS X.)

Consider using a POSIX compliant, cross-platform set of tools and toolkit, and you'll gain 3 platforms at once: OSX, Unix, and Linux.

This is what MarkSpace, SyncBuddy, and many other commercial companies do.

[Laurens]

Originally Posted by hacker

Not only is that patently false, its pure FUD. The "slowness" is due to incorrectly writing your application, not the toolkit itself. There are plenty of VERY snappy gtk+ applications running under Win32 and other environments, without any "dog slow" behavior as you claim.

Perhaps I should clarify that. The SWT port of GTK is indeed dog slow. See here for background info. Work is underway to improve performance. (SWT is the UI toolkit that Sunrise uses.)

Sorry to have upset you.

[tovarish]

i dont see though why commandline updation of documents can't be done in linux. right now i have no problems with manipulation of an sdl in windows while i run a cronjob to download and convert in linux.
I dont need hotsync support and i am not using it in windows too. How much effort would it need to make a simple commandline version (like the one in windows) which just uses a .sdl file to download or update documents.
I would really like to use my linux router to do this instead of my windows box.

thanks
tovarish

[Laurens]

Originally Posted by tovarish

i dont see though why commandline updation of documents can't be done in linux. right now i have no problems with manipulation of an sdl in windows while i run a cronjob to download and convert in linux.
I dont need hotsync support and i am not using it in windows too. How much effort would it need to make a simple commandline version (like the one in windows) which just uses a .sdl file to download or update documents. I would really like to use my linux router to do this instead of my windows box.

I will only support platforms that I'm going to support with the commercial version. Right now, that means only Windows.

The reason Sunrise is as actively developed as it is, is because there's a commercial incentive behind it. Now if I did expand support to other platforms, even with a simple command-line tool, there would be a reason for people NOT to choose my product. Namely: the freeware version supports Linux, while the commercial version does not.

Hope you understand.

[tovarish]

well if thats the reason then its ok, its just that i only use the commandline version to update documents so i didnt see a difference in the platform support for that.

tovarish