Mail Archives: djgpp/1995/12/19/18:10:46
In your message dated Tuesday 19, December 1995 you wrote :
> Hi GUI-specialists!
> ===================
I guess I might be called one of those :-)
> Being impressed by a tcl/tk demo I'd like to know whether there exists
> something comparable for djgpp/dos.
Not that I've /heard/ of....
> - Can anyone give me pointers to a GUI
> builder for text and/or graphics mode?
Try SWORD - I haven't tried it myself yet (being on a dialup link and thus
rationed) - but it sort of hangs around DJGPP archives generally. The author's
around here also so you'll probably get a more informative reply from him :-)
> Is there anything that could help me to
> build portable GUIs that can be re-used under LINUX?
Prayer? I've never heard of such a beast as a protable GUI bar the X Window
System... well, I suppose Windoze NT might just class as such a thing 'coz it
comes on about 4 platforms...
> - I'm writing a class
> library for some general administration, and I left out the user-interaction
> part until now.
Story of my life, that's why I started writing GUIs :-)
> Is there any package that can help me to let users fill in
> tabulars and forms? The FORMS package doesn't run under dos, does it? -
They're not that hard to write if you don't want 'random access' overlapping
windows - the basic modules are:
Mouse/GFX interfacing (replaceable for different systems)
Popup window (stack like, a window object remembers the bitmap beneath it, so it
can redraw when it goes away. Window object creates standard frame GFX etc.)
Widgets - each window holds a linked list of 'widgets' (OOP time, guys) which
respond to input messages (mouse up/down/move, key press, etc). These widgets
are buttons, etc. A window is created in memory, told what widgets it holds
(linked list usually), and then passed to a Handler Function which sits and
monitors keyboard and mouse, posting messages to the widgets until one of the
buttons on the form is pushed - it then returns, say, an int stored in the
button's struct so the app knows if OK or CANCEL was hit. Buttons respond both
to clicks and hotkeys, etc, using the flexible messaging scheme.
Optional goody - menus: make a widget called a menu button, which changes colour
when the mouse moves into it's screen rectangle, and reverts when it's moved
out. Create a function which is passed an array of strings, then builds a dialog
containing menu buttons with those titles, and passes it to the Handler Function
so we have a nice menu box with a selector bar in!
And so on.
> And IF I come to write a GUI tool myself, is there any style-guide, some
> platform-independent form description language? Is there a HTML
> interpreter/parser for DOS? Could it be translated the X-Windows emulation
> available for djgpp? -
HTML isn't what you want, I think, although perhaps it would have /some/
application for forms entry... hmmm... intruguing...
> Any pointer, any help is appreciated, Your's, Sven.
Luck, Sven. Feel free to send me any more specific questions, if you want. I
like GUIs :-)
Regards,
ABW
--
Alaric B. Williams (alaric AT abwillms DOT demon DOT co DOT uk)
"A man walks into a bar, right, and he goes 'ouch' coz it's an iron bar"
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