Cross Platform Tray Application

Question

I want to develop a type of application for the system tray / dock that will run in the background and perform some tasks. I want to target Windows and OSX. After doing some research and based on my own set of skills, I'm going to go with C ++. It will control the specified directory and perform actions based on the files in the directory. To change simple user settings, you need a simple form (somewhat like Dropbox).

My question is how should I organize the project. Can I create a C ++ dll or similar that I can use on both platforms and use WPF or WinForms on Windows and Cocoa on OSX as the only interface to access the library? Most of the heavy lifting will be done by the library, so the interface is not the main focus. What is associated with the creation of a cross-platform C ++ library?

Thanks.

Answer 1

The best practice is to create a cross platform library. If you can do this, I would use static libraries. Then create a variety of applications for the specific needs of your platform.

It’s better to “pull” the functionality out of the library, as opposed to writing extensions on top of the library. Thus, you can choose and choose what is suitable for the platform.

I would look at Qt for the GUI. This is by far the best toolkit I've used.