Samiksha Jaiswal (Editor)

GNUstep

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Developer(s)
  
GNUstep Developers

Operating system
  
Cross-platform

Written in
  
Objective-C

Type
  
Widget toolkit

GNUstep

Stable release
  
make 2.6.8, base 1.24.9, gui 0.24.1, back 0.24.1 / April 21, 2016; 10 months ago (2016-04-21)

Preview release
  
only in the SVN software repository

GNUstep is a free software implementation of the Cocoa (formerly OpenStep) Objective-C frameworks, widget toolkit, and application development tools for Unix-like operating systems and Microsoft Windows. It is part of the GNU Project.

Contents

GNUstep features a cross-platform, object-oriented IDE. Like Apple Cocoa, GNUstep also has a Java interface, as well as Ruby, Guile and Scheme bindings. The GNUstep developers track some additions to Apple's Cocoa to remain compatible. The roots of the GNUstep application interface are the same as the roots of Cocoa: NeXTSTEP and OpenStep. GNUstep thus predates Cocoa, which emerged when Apple acquired NeXT's technology and incorporated it into the development of the original Mac OS X, while GNUstep was initially an effort by GNU developers to replicate the technically ambitious NeXTSTEP's programmer-friendly features.

History

GNUstep began when Paul Kunz and others at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center wanted to port HippoDraw from NeXTSTEP to another platform. Instead of rewriting HippoDraw from scratch and reusing only the application design, they decided to rewrite the NeXTSTEP object layer on which the application depended. This was the first version of libobjcX. It enabled them to port HippoDraw to Unix systems running the X Window System without changing a single line of their application source. After the OpenStep specification was released to the public in 1994, they decided to write a new objcX which would adhere to the new APIs. The software would become known as "GNUstep".

Rendering

GNUstep contain a set of graphical control elements written in the Objective-C programming language. The graphical user interface (GUI) of e.g. GNUMail is composed of graphics control element. GNUMail has to interact with the windowing system, e.g. X11 or Wayland, and its graphical user interface has to be rendered. GNUstep's backend provides a small set of functions used by the user interface library to interface to the actual windowing system. It also has a rendering engine which emulates common PostScript functions. The package gnustep-back provides the following backends:

  • cairo – default backend using the Cairo 2D graphics library.
  • winlib – default backend on Microsoft Windows systems. Cairo and Windows API variants.
  • art – old (deprecated) backend on unix-like systems. Uses the vector-based PostScriptlike 2d graphics library libArt.
  • xlib – old (deprecated) X11 backend.
  • Paradigms

    GNUstep inherits some design principles proposed in OPENSTEP (GNUstep predates Cocoa, but Cocoa is based on OPENSTEP) as well as the Objective-C language.

  • Model–view–controller paradigm
  • Target–action
  • Drag-and-drop
  • Delegation
  • Message forwarding (through NSInvocation)
  • Applications

    Here are some examples of applications written for or ported to GNUstep.

    Written from scratch

  • Addresses
  • GNUMail, an e-mail client
  • GNUstep Database Library 2, an Enterprise Objects Framework clone
  • GNUstepWeb, an application server
  • Gorm, an interface builder
  • GWorkspace, a workspace and file manager
  • Grr, an RSS feed reader
  • Oolite, a clone of Elite, a space simulation game with trading components
  • PRICE, imaging application
  • ProjectCenter, the Project Builder or Xcode equivalent.
  • TalkSoup
  • Terminal
  • Zipper
  • Ported from NeXTSTEP, OPENSTEP, or Mac OS X

  • Adun
  • BioCocoa
  • Chess
  • Cenon
  • EdenMath
  • Eggplant
  • Emacs
  • Fortunate
  • Gomoku
  • NeXTGO
  • TextEdit
  • TimeMon
  • Foundation Kit

    The Foundation Kit provides basic classes such as wrapper classes and data structure classes.

  • strings
  • collections (arrays, sets, dictionaries) and enumerators
  • file management
  • object archiving
  • advanced date manipulation
  • distributed objects and inter-process communication
  • URL handling
  • notifications (and distributed notifications)
  • easy multi-threading
  • timers
  • locks
  • exception handling
  • Application Kit

    The Application Kit provides classes oriented around graphical user interface capabilities.

  • user interface elements (table views, browsers, matrices, scroll views)
  • graphics (WYSIWYG, postscript-like graphics, bezier paths, image handling with multiple representations, graphical contexts)
  • color management (calibrated vs. device colors; CMYK, RGB, HSB, gray and named color representations; alpha transparency)
  • text system features: rich text format, text attachments, layout manager, typesetter, rules, paragraph styles, font management, spelling
  • document management
  • printing features: print operations, print panel and page layout
  • help manager
  • pasteboard (aka clip board) services
  • spell checker
  • workspace bindings for applications
  • drag and drop operations
  • services sharing among applications
  • References

    GNUstep Wikipedia