Recently I saw new XCB (X C Binding) that will replace libX11. XCB uses XML descritption of the protocol to generate the bindings. I think it could be used to generate Mono/.NET managed bindings for using them in Managed.Windows.Forms (Mono's System.Windows.Forms). ¿Is it a good idea?

Today I thought in Gtk# and .NET/Mono integration. I think that Gtk# should be more integrated with .NET getting out Glib dependecies and making Gtk# control compatible with .NET control. Controls in Gtk# should implement, at least, IComponent and derive from Component (not from GLib.Object). I don't know the impact to Gtk# architecture and I don't know how hard it could be but there are a lot of new features that we can obtain. Using Glib is not necessary becuse all glib services are inside .NET/Mono.

This changes can make Gtk# a bit different for Gtk+ developers but it's not much more different than the actual Gtk# and in the other hand we have a very simple way to use it. For example, a Gtk# TreeView has its Model and I think that model could be a DataTable, an ArrayList, or other class. We should provide only a Tree implementation iside Mono or using SWF TreeView logic.

Other thought was to be able to use Gtk# widgets inside SWF application and SWF controls inside a Gtk# application. Gtk.DotNet is started and it can be the way to get this feature in Gtk#. It could be very useful for developers and for the evolution of the free GUI toolkits in .NET/Mono.

I've just finished to install this blog, here is my first post. My main goal is to publish my ideas and projects, in special case the evolution of the work in DataGridView control from System.Windows.Forms 2.0 library.

After 1500 lines of code, the journey only is in the begining. I've written the property definitions for DataGridView and DataGridViewCell and I think that all the classes I need could be defined along this week. When I finish my university exams I'll be dedicated fulltime to this work.