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MiniGUI Supplementary Documents

Overview

Good software requires good documentation, especially system software like MiniGUI. However, maintaining documentation for a complex software system is a lot more difficult than maintaining source code.

It sounds like it is always better if there are documents than no documents, but if the documents are outdated or contain errors, the damage will be even greater. So there is a saying: "Source code is the best document." Therefore, we don't particularly want to spend a lot of time writing and maintaining documentation.

On the other hand, facing some new features, the developers, especially the beginners, still need some basic documents or guides to quickly understand how they work and how to use them.

In the past many years, we have accumulated a large number of MiniGUI documents, including user manuals, programming guides and so on. With the releases of new MiniGUI versions (like MiniGUI 3.2 and MiniGUI 4.0), it doesn't make much sense to update or rewrite these documents throughout just for some new features.

Therefore, we plan to write some new documents or guides on this GitHub Wiki system, by supplementing the existing documents instead of updating the existing ones. These documents will not be very detailed, but will point out the main points and related sample programs to help you quickly grasp the relevant features.

We call these documents "MiniGUI Supplementary Documents".

Supplementary Documents

Using CommLCD NEWGAL Engine and Comm IAL Engine - How to define external stubs to implement your CommLCD engine and Comm IAL engine outside MiniGUI Core.
Using Images and Fonts on System without File System - How to build source for incore images and fonts, and load them for your MiniGUI apps.
Using Enhanced LOGFONT and DEVFONT Interfaces - Understand and use enhanced LOGFONT and DEVFONT intefaces of MiniGUI 4.0.
Using SyncUpdateDC to Reduce Screen Flicker - How to use MiniGUI's synchronous update mechanism to reduce screen flicker.
Laying out, Shaping, and Rendering Text in Complex/Mixed Scripts - How to lay out, shape, and render text in complex or mixed scripts on MiniGUI 4.0.
Writing MiniGUI Apps for 64-bit Platforms - Describe the things you need to be aware of when developing MiniGUI apps for 64-bit platforms.

Existing Documents

Due to the stability of the MiniGUI APIs, developers can continue to refer to the contents of the existing documents to understand and learn the basic usage, concepts and APIs of MiniGUI. These documents are organized on the old MiniGUI Wiki system or in PDF files:

On the other hand, the API reference manuals are always consistent with the source code and are released with the source code packages at the same time. Here are the links to the API reference manuals of MiniGUI Core and components.

API Reference for MiniGUI Core

MiniGUI 4.0 API Reference (MiniGUI-Processes mode) - The API reference for MiniGUI V4.0 multi-process runmode.
MiniGUI 4.0 API Reference (MiniGUI-Threads mode) - The API reference for MiniGUI V4.0 multi-thread runmode.
MiniGUI 4.0 API Reference (MiniGUI-Standalone mode) - The API reference for MiniGUI V4.0 standalone runmode.
MiniGUI 3.2 API Reference (MiniGUI-Processes mode) - The API reference for MiniGUI V3.2 multi-process runmode.
MiniGUI 3.2 API Reference (MiniGUI-Threads mode) - The API reference for MiniGUI V3.2 multi-thread runmode.
MiniGUI 3.2 API Reference (MiniGUI-Standalone mode) - The API reference for MiniGUI V3.2 standalone runmode.

API Reference for MiniGUI Components

mGUtils 1.2 API Reference - The API reference for mGUtils V1.2.
mGPlus 1.4 API Reference - The API reference for mGUtils V1.4.
mGEff 1.2 API Reference - The API reference for mGEff V1.2.
mGNCS 1.2 API Reference - The API reference for mGNCS V1.2.
mGNCS4Touch 1.2 API Reference - The API reference for mGNCS4Touch V1.2.

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