Slawek, just to clarity the statements on the devel list vs. forum/list use and hopefully to put things a little into perspective:
https://sourceforge.net/p/flightgear/ma ... /36061041/Stuart wrote:Re: Forum vs. Mailing list. As per the official policy document (*)
core development
is discussed here, and the core GUI is part of that. As illustrated
by James' comment
regarding the UI, it's important that this happens here so that it can
be coordinated
with other development activities.
When I suggested to use the Development/Canvas sub-forum for some of your Canvas related questions, I was never "advocating the forums almost exclusively" trying to make new contributors "avoid the mailing list".
Indeed, once you search the archives you will find me suggesting regularly that people check out the devel list for certain core development related topics.
However, the point was that you specifically asked about using/extending the Canvas and MapStructure systems, as well as about porting the map-canvas.xml dialog.
I have been involved in the design, creation and maintenance of all of these 3 components, so I am familiar with them.
This work is not about "core development" at all - this is purely fgdata/base package development. There are no C++ changes needed for this sort of work.
None of this touches the PLIB PUI or Qt5 C++ code we have in FlightGear.
And all Canvas fgdata/fgaddon development talks happen on the forum - as a matter of fact, once you look at any of the
recent topics, you will see that they were almost exclusively discussed on the forum.
Indeed, you will also see that even Stuart himself (despite being a core developer) used the forum to discuss his Canvas related work, despite it involving C++ changes (in this case the WebMercator projection).
So, there's that too.
Again, this is not indended to compete or conflict with other ongoing core development - however, if your interest is extending the Canvas/MapStructure systems and seeing the map-canvas.xml dialog ported to become a native Canvas dialog, the forum is the right place (as is the wiki).
And Stuart himself suggested that previously, when he said this:
https://sourceforge.net/p/flightgear/ma ... /36059733/Stuart wrote:Implementing the terrain maps you list above would be a very easy first task.
Plus if you're interested in improving the GUI, that would also be very welcome.
That's slightly more complicated, but there are lots of resources available in
the wiki and on the forum.
This is because none of this requires any C++ changes, so it is not about "core development" at all.
If in doubt, I can highly recommend to check out
all communications channels and see what works best for you from a signal/noise ratio (or even time-to-action).
Just like James said, there are contributors who stopped using the forums for a number of reasons - but there are also long-term contributors (including core developers) who stopped using the devel list for pretty much the same reasons.
Finally, there is a long-standing history of /some/ core developers actively discouraging any developments related to adding more Nasal/Canvas code to FlightGear for things that they'd like to see implemented in C++. Unfortunately, this particularly affects the development of a new GUI scheme.
To sum things up, if you are interested in anything involving C++ ("core development") you are better off with the devel list, if your interests lie elsewhere (Nasal/Canvas, MapStructure), you are probably better off with the forum.
Besides, may I politely suggest not to underestimate the benefits of interacting with a forum of people who can "write the most" and in the process provide concrete answers to questions within a few hours, compared to interacting with people on a devel list who rarely, if ever, document any of their work in the form of README files, updated manuals, release announcements, changelogs or even just newsletter additions.
The forum and the wiki are solving a real problem, and filling a niche, that is largely caused by people not documenting their work and not providing a sufficient degree of support - so it is for a reason that the forum and the wiki work so well, despite the very disparity between words and actions that James was touching on
Anyway, please do make up your own mind - and do use what works best for you, obviously !