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Christopher A. Watford | 1 Sep 2005 02:26
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Re: Request: Windows installers

On 8/31/05, skaller <skaller <at> users.sourceforge.net> wrote:
> I have a small request for the Ocaml Windows installers:
> 
> There are TWO Windows based Ocaml ports: MinGW and Win32 native
> plus the Cygwin port.
> 
> Please could the builders of these packages
> distinguish them??
> 
> Make the default install points, desktop icons, menu items,
> etc all distinct. Plus, with the OcamlWinPlus thing, make sure
> the port/version of Ocaml being used is displayed on the titlebar:
> even the help/about does not tell you this (hmm .. and 'ocaml'
> command should tell you this too)

I'll fix that. In my copy Help -> About does, but the entire thing is
built such that it doesn't need to know the version. Unfortunately the
best thing I can do is grab the first line from ocaml.exe... which is
fugly. If the EXE is stamped I'll take out of the NT image headers.

OCamlWinPlus really needs an embedded toplevel. Because piping in that
toplevel is a sonofabitch. I could spruce the thing up big time or
drop it into Eclipse/MSVS if I could step through the toplevel code
wise. Alas I'm not quite sure how to start this.

> I have, and need, all three versions of Ocaml installed,
> and it is all very confusing, both MingW and native ports
> think they own the world and use the same OCAMLLIB variable,
> and also both expect themselves to be first in the PATH.
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Matt Gushee | 1 Sep 2005 06:25

Re: Does LablTk have a future?

Jon Harrop wrote:

 >>> Yes but we gain the ability to have a better interface on all 
platforms.
 >>
 >>
 >> Well, "better" is rather subjective. And not having the native
 >> interface means that people will say "oh, look, this is a non-standard
 >> OCaml program" instead on looking at the application itself.
 >
 >
 >
 > True. I think this is the lesser of evils though.

Hmm, I'd like to think so. Jef Raskin[*] wrote something to the effect 
that we need better interfaces than what we have now, and something 
better will necessarily be different--with which I heartily agree.

But in terms of "industry acceptance" in the near term ... I've been 
involved in a number of discussions of why Tk is awful (or not), and one 
point that always comes up is that users allegedly don't like Tk apps 
because they look different.

--

-- 
Matt Gushee
Englewood, CO, USA

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Matt Gushee | 1 Sep 2005 06:31

Re: Does LablTk have a future?

David Thomas wrote:

>>Yes but we gain the ability to have a better
>>interface on all platforms.
> 
> While pleasantly egotistical, I would have to say that
> this is a false statement.  Yes, there are problems
> with any given windowing system.  Note, however, that
> the user has already chosen the system whose
> shortcomings they feel the most comfortable with.  

True in a way. But really, the vast majority of end users have not 
chosen. Their employer, school, or computer vendor has chosen Windows 
for them, and they become used to Windows and never give anything else a 
fair trial.

But the end result is the same, I suppose.

--
Matt Gushee
Englewood, CO, USA

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Matt Gushee | 1 Sep 2005 06:49

Re: Feeding the OCaml GUI troll

First of all, I hope the "troll" label is tongue-in-cheek. I really am 
not trying to stir up argument for argument's sake. The goal is to find 
a project or two that might benefit both myself and the community.

David MENTRE wrote:

> I really fear your under estimate the amount of work needed to
> accomplish such a job. And the OCaml community seems pretty fragmented
> on this GUI front.

Sounds right to me.

>  2. write a *simple* GUI front end, in OCaml, with only simple modules
> and/or simple objects. No fancy use of OCaml type system. Stay close
> to ML core. Use Labgtk2, native Win32 and MacOS X libraries to render
> the GUI. However I don't know the complexity of handling gory details,
> like encoding of strings;

I'm not sold on the idea of a "simple" GUI front end. I've tried one or 
two of them, and I think they're probably good for, say, a database 
application, but useless for more general apps like text editors and 
drawing tools.

>  4. Use Labltk. I can't really comment on it, as I have never used it
> and can't say about its graphical behaviour or desktop integration
> (copy/paste and drag&drop);

Drag and drop would have to be added; copy/paste functionality is a 
built-in feature of the Text widget and possibly some others.
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Matt Gushee | 1 Sep 2005 06:58

Re: GUI for OCaml (was: Re: Does LablTk have a future?)

yoann padioleau wrote:

 > Is there really big a differences between Qt, Gtk, Wxwindows, ... ?
 > The only difference is maybe the number of widgets it supports, but 
all those API share the same kind of style,
 > the same basic widgets.

No, there are also important differences in their event handling 
mechanisms ... can't really go into detail at this moment, but it's 
something that needs to be considered.

--

-- 
Matt Gushee
Englewood, CO, USA

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Matt Gushee | 1 Sep 2005 06:17

Re: Does LablTk have a future?

Jon Harrop wrote:

>>Specific in what sense? And do you mean LablTk as a tool, or as a book
>>topic?

> I meant that the topic "GUI programming using lablTK" is too specific for a 
> book.

Okay, I thought that was probably what you meant. And you're probably right.

>>Ever used the Canvas or Text widgets? There's a lot going on there.
> 
> I'm using the Text widget in a very simple way. I may have to start using the 
> canvas widget because I can't figure out how to do various things (e.g. a 
> spreadsheet).

Yes, using Text for a spreadsheet is pushing the envelope quite a bit. 
It's certainly possible with Canvas. The other option would be to have a 
bunch of Text or Entry widgets laid out with the Grid geometry manager.

> Yes. As OCaml gains popularity it will be commercially viable to publish 
> cheaper books. In the mean time, if you're interested in making money, 
> perhaps educational software would be better?

Okay, you've got my attention. I've had vague thoughts in that direction 
myself, and it happens that I taught English as a Second Language for a 
few years before getting into geekery. What thoughts do you have about 
the opportunities in that field?

> Incidentally, OpenGL is extremely important for us. So a GUI toolkit must be
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Christian Lindig | 1 Sep 2005 10:07
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Re: how to enlarge header of blocks?


On Aug 30, 2005, at 1:16 PM, Mark Shinwell wrote:

> If the extra field obeys the GC structure constraints (see the Caml
> documentation on interfacing to C) then you shouldn't have any
> problem...

Maybe we have different things in mind, so I'll elaborate my idea 
briefly and why it was too simple: I changed the allocation routine in 
the bytecode runtime to allocate one extra word where I intended to 
store some information as an Ocaml value. However, I overlooked that 
Array.length and String.length use the block size denoted by the header 
to determine the length. Hence, code looping over an array or string 
would run into my value - and crash. For example, here is the code for 
Array.get:

CAMLprim value caml_array_get_addr(value array, value index)
{
   long idx = Long_val(index);
   if (idx < 0 || idx >= Wosize_val(array)) caml_array_bound_error();
   return Field(array, idx);
}

To make this work I either must refrain from tucking an extra word to 
strings and arrays or change the implementations for the length 
functions and code that checks array and string bounds.

-- Christian

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Johann Spies | 1 Sep 2005 10:56
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Re: LablGL on Ubuntu?

On Sat, Aug 27, 2005 at 10:04:57AM +1000, skaller wrote:
> 
> I actually think GODI is better than all, since it
> doesn't have any concept of a 'distribution': source building
> is the way to go with Ocaml, since Ocaml, unlike C, is reliable
> and fast to build.
> 

I suppose one has to choose either the Debian packages or Godi.  If I
am correct you cannot mix the two?

Regards
Johann
--

-- 
Johann Spies          Telefoon: 021-808 4036
Informasietegnologie, Universiteit van Stellenbosch

     "For in much wisdom is much grief; and he that  
      increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow."        
                                   Ecclesiastes 1:18 

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Matt Gushee | 1 Sep 2005 13:20

Re: Does LablTk have a future?

Matt Gushee wrote:

> Hmm, I'd like to think so. Jef Raskin[*] wrote something to the effect 
> that we need better interfaces than what we have now, and something 
> better will necessarily be different--with which I heartily agree.

And the footnote is:

[*] Sometimes called the "father of the Macintosh," Raskin has more
     recently developed an innovative UI originally called The Humane
     Interface, now known as Archie (or aRCHIe?).

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Matt Gushee | 1 Sep 2005 13:26

Re: Does LablTk have a future?

Matt Gushee wrote:

> [*] Sometimes called the "father of the Macintosh," Raskin has more
>     recently developed an innovative UI originally called The Humane
>     Interface

Whoops, that was the title of his book. The software was called The 
Humane *Environment.* And Raskin unfortunately left this world in early 
2005, but his work is being carried on by his son.

--
Matt Gushee
Englewood, CO, USA

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