fxruby-users — General-purpose discussion list for FXRuby

Re: [Fxruby-users] [ANN] Updated API Documentation

[Joel V. <vj...@PA...>]

Lyle Johnson wrote:
> All,
> 
> I've completed the first pass through the FXRuby API documentation, 
> which is posted here:
> 
>     http://www.fxruby.org/doc/api

Is this more or less the same as the downloadable api-docs file on the 
sourceforge site?

Re: [Fxruby-users] [ANN] Updated API Documentation

[Joel V. <vj...@PA...>]

Hugh Sasse Staff Elec Eng wrote:

>>what facilities, if any, RDoc provides for a more general solution to
>>the challenge of cross-referencing related ideas.

You all probably know this, but rdoc will automatically link things like

   #method
   Class#method
   Class.class_method

Re: [Fxruby-users] [ANN] Updated API Documentation

[Lyle J. <ly...@kn...>]

Hugh Sasse Staff Elec Eng wrote:

> Good point. I have to explore [FreeRIDE's class browser].  Is it very tied to Scite, or
> can I use it with Vim?

No, I think it's pretty heavily tied into its integrated editor based on 
Scintilla (the same source code editing component used by SciTE).

Re: [Fxruby-users] [ANN] Updated API Documentation

[Hugh S. S. E. E. <hg...@dm...>]

On Mon, 9 Jun 2003, Lyle Johnson wrote:

> Hugh Sasse Staff Elec Eng wrote:
>
> > true or false.  Does this affect the return value for <a method>?....
>
> OK, just made a note of this. But to answer the question, no, the return

Thank you.
>
> > seems, from looking at the draw methods, that you don't draw on an
> > FXCanvas, you draw on an FXDC.  [cf "How do you get down from an
> > elephant?"]  The media independence is good, but for someone coming
>
> Your point is well taken. A lot of the more interesting information
> about classes like FXDC is not their API in isolation, but rather how
> they plug into the surrounding framework and interact with other classes

Yes, that's better expressed than I put it.

> (like FXCanvas). At the least, I should be able to link to other classes
> and methods that RDoc knows about (i.e. a "see also" approach). Not sure

Thanks.
> what facilities, if any, RDoc provides for a more general solution to
> the challenge of cross-referencing related ideas.

I know it can have cross references, but I don't think it can
genrate them.
>
> By the way, thanks for making me look up the answer to the riddle. I
> will let others google for the answer as I did ;)

! I thought it had been around a while, so it would be well known.
:-)
>
> > I find myself wondering if this flexibility should be exposed
> > to every programmer, or whether a simpler wrapper might be useful
> > for the neophyte or the writer of the quick, throwaway bit of code.
>
> Which flexibility are you talking about? Attaching a device context (DC)
> to a canvas before you can draw into it?

Yes, for that particular case.  I'm not sure what others there are.
>
> > [...]creating FXRdoc, [...]
>
> Have you seen the class browser from FreeRIDE? It doesn't work exactly

Good point. I have to explore that.  Is it very tied to Scite, or
can I use it with Vim?
>
>
        Thank you
        Hugh

Re: [Fxruby-users] [ANN] Updated API Documentation

[Lyle J. <jl...@cf...>]

Hugh Sasse Staff Elec Eng wrote:

> Yes, this is really nice.  Concise and informative.  Also it may
> help to add information about what happens when block_given?() is
> true or false.  Does this affect the return value for <a method>?....

OK, just made a note of this. But to answer the question, no, the return 
value of FXClass.new is always a reference to the new instance, and is 
not affected by the presence or absence of a block.

> Links to examples that are shipped with FXRuby might be good.  You
> have a few that rely on the FXCanvas for example, but I found
> reading the code too confusing to learn from, and the API
> documentation is rather obscure about how to draw on a canvas.  It
> seems, from looking at the draw methods, that you don't draw on an
> FXCanvas, you draw on an FXDC.  [cf "How do you get down from an
> elephant?"]  The media independence is good, but for someone coming
> from Tk this is odd :-)  So how to connect this related semantic
> information?  Maybe have a "See also:" item at the end?  "Keywords"?
> "CategoryCategories" as per Wiki?  Interesting problem....

Your point is well taken. A lot of the more interesting information 
about classes like FXDC is not their API in isolation, but rather how 
they plug into the surrounding framework and interact with other classes 
(like FXCanvas). At the least, I should be able to link to other classes 
and methods that RDoc knows about (i.e. a "see also" approach). Not sure 
what facilities, if any, RDoc provides for a more general solution to 
the challenge of cross-referencing related ideas.

By the way, thanks for making me look up the answer to the riddle. I 
will let others google for the answer as I did ;)

> I find myself wondering if this flexibility should be exposed
> to every programmer, or whether a simpler wrapper might be useful
> for the neophyte or the writer of the quick, throwaway bit of code.

Which flexibility are you talking about? Attaching a device context (DC) 
to a canvas before you can draw into it?

> Drifting off topic a bit: Thinking about the different ways people
> look at code, and changing viewpoint dynamically, I wondered about
> the difficulties of creating FXRdoc, a graphical explorer of code
> which allows one to see trees of classes, expose all the constants a
> class inherits at once, or just its own, toggle showing of method
> code, .....

Have you seen the class browser from FreeRIDE? It doesn't work exactly 
as you described, but it's a pretty nifty tool for working with Ruby 
code. It could perhaps be extended to do some of the kinds of the things 
you're describing.

RE: [Fxruby-users] [ANN] Updated API Documentation

[Jacobs, D. <Dee...@Dy...>]

Thanks again, Lyle.
	This is helpful.
	Generic examples, like your foo example are 
	extremely helpful.

	I guess most of my questions will be of the
	specifics as in the mirror item.

	I know you will do a fine job.

Dee A. Jacobs

-----Original Message-----
From: Lyle Johnson [mailto:jl...@cf...]
Sent: Monday, June 09, 2003 1:37 PM
To: fxr...@li...
Subject: Re: [Fxruby-users] [ANN] Updated API Documentation


Jacobs, Dee wrote:

>         This is the sort of changes I asked you about back in May.
> This is very helpful for newbies to the GUI.

Great!

> I still see trouble in my understanding of some of the interfaces.
> An example below from FXImage - Public functions.
> 
> mirror(horizontal, vertical) 
> 
> Mirror image horizontally and/or vertically
> 
> Does this indicate need for values here for each or is
> it a choice of options? What are the expected values?

This indicates a need for both values. If a method has some optional 
argument(s), its declaration will look something like this:

     foo(x, y, z=1)

where the "z=1" notation means that the third argument to the "foo" 
method is optional and, if not specified, assumes a default value of 1.

For your specific question: the FXImage#mirror method takes two 
arguments of boolean type (i.e. true or false). Neither has a default 
value, so you must specify both of them. If the first argument 
(horizontal) is true, the image will be mirrored from left-to-right. If 
the second argument (vertical) is true, the image will be mirrored from 
top-to-bottom. If both are true it's flipped in both directions.

> Please check other places for ambiguities.

I will do my best, but things which are ambiguous to you (or others) are 
not necessarily ambiguous to me. It's going to be a very iterative 
process, but I hope that you and others will help me to improve the docs 
as we go along.

Thanks,

Lyle



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Re: [Fxruby-users] [ANN] Updated API Documentation

[Lyle J. <jl...@cf...>]

Jacobs, Dee wrote:

>         This is the sort of changes I asked you about back in May.
> This is very helpful for newbies to the GUI.

Great!

> I still see trouble in my understanding of some of the interfaces.
> An example below from FXImage - Public functions.
> 
> mirror(horizontal, vertical) 
> 
> Mirror image horizontally and/or vertically
> 
> Does this indicate need for values here for each or is
> it a choice of options? What are the expected values?

This indicates a need for both values. If a method has some optional 
argument(s), its declaration will look something like this:

     foo(x, y, z=1)

where the "z=1" notation means that the third argument to the "foo" 
method is optional and, if not specified, assumes a default value of 1.

For your specific question: the FXImage#mirror method takes two 
arguments of boolean type (i.e. true or false). Neither has a default 
value, so you must specify both of them. If the first argument 
(horizontal) is true, the image will be mirrored from left-to-right. If 
the second argument (vertical) is true, the image will be mirrored from 
top-to-bottom. If both are true it's flipped in both directions.

> Please check other places for ambiguities.

I will do my best, but things which are ambiguous to you (or others) are 
not necessarily ambiguous to me. It's going to be a very iterative 
process, but I hope that you and others will help me to improve the docs 
as we go along.

Thanks,

Lyle

Re: [Fxruby-users] [ANN] Updated API Documentation

[Hugh S. S. E. E. <hg...@dm...>]

On Mon, 9 Jun 2003, Lyle Johnson wrote:

> All,
>
> I've completed the first pass through the FXRuby API documentation,
> which is posted here:
>
>      http://www.fxruby.org/doc/api
>

Thank you for this work....

> More can and should be done. On the "second pass", I want to do a better
> job of documenting the types of the method arguments. For example, take
> a look at the documentation for FX4Splitter's initialize method:
>
>      http://www.fxruby.org/doc/api/classes/Fox/FX4Splitter.html
>
> Here, the individual method arguments and their types are listed in a
> sort of table, similar to the format used for JavaDoc. I'd like to use
> this approach throughout the documentation.

Yes, this is really nice.  Concise and informative.  Also it may
help to add information about what happens when block_given?() is
true or false.  Does this affect the return value for <a method>?....

>
> Another goal is to add short code examples, where appropriate. I'm
> trying to decide what is the right balance between reference
> documentation -- which is the intent -- and the more expositional style

Links to examples that are shipped with FXRuby might be good.  You
have a few that rely on the FXCanvas for example, but I found
reading the code too confusing to learn from, and the API
documentation is rather obscure about how to draw on a canvas.  It
seems, from looking at the draw methods, that you don't draw on an
FXCanvas, you draw on an FXDC.  [cf "How do you get down from an
elephant?"]  The media independence is good, but for someone coming
from Tk this is odd :-)  So how to connect this related semantic
information?  Maybe have a "See also:" item at the end?  "Keywords"?
"CategoryCategories" as per Wiki?  Interesting problem....

I find myself wondering if this flexibility should be exposed
to every programmer, or whether a simpler wrapper might be useful
for the neophyte or the writer of the quick, throwaway bit of code.


> that you will see in the FXRuby book, due out in approximately the year
> 2020 ;)
>
> Anyways, hope this is useful and please give me some feedback about what
> other kinds of information we can show here.


Drifting off topic a bit: Thinking about the different ways people
look at code, and changing viewpoint dynamically, I wondered about
the difficulties of creating FXRdoc, a graphical explorer of code
which allows one to see trees of classes, expose all the constants a
class inherits at once, or just its own, toggle showing of method
code, .....


>
> Thanks,
>
> Lyle
>

        Hugh

RE: [Fxruby-users] [ANN] Updated API Documentation

[Jacobs, D. <Dee...@Dy...>]

Thanks Lyle,

	This is the sort of changes I asked you about back in May.
This is very helpful for newbies to the GUI. 

I still see trouble in my understanding of some of the interfaces.
An example below from FXImage - Public functions.

mirror(horizontal, vertical)  

Mirror image horizontally and/or vertically 

Does this indicate need for values here for each or is
it a choice of options? What are the expected values?

Please check other places for abiguities.

I very much appreciate your help to us who are new
to API interfaces. Can't get along without them.

Dee A. Jacobs

-----Original Message-----
From: Lyle Johnson [mailto:jl...@cf...]
Sent: Monday, June 09, 2003 12:12 PM
To: fxr...@li...
Subject: [Fxruby-users] [ANN] Updated API Documentation


All,

I've completed the first pass through the FXRuby API documentation, 
which is posted here:

     http://www.fxruby.org/doc/api

By first pass, I simply mean that I think all of the classes and their 
methods and attributes are at least *listed* here. IMO this is now a 
much better choice than reading the C++ API documentation and trying to 
"translate" that from C++ to Ruby. For example, all of the messages that 
various widgets can send to their targets are documented.

More can and should be done. On the "second pass", I want to do a better 
job of documenting the types of the method arguments. For example, take 
a look at the documentation for FX4Splitter's initialize method:

     http://www.fxruby.org/doc/api/classes/Fox/FX4Splitter.html

Here, the individual method arguments and their types are listed in a 
sort of table, similar to the format used for JavaDoc. I'd like to use 
this approach throughout the documentation.

Another goal is to add short code examples, where appropriate. I'm 
trying to decide what is the right balance between reference 
documentation -- which is the intent -- and the more expositional style 
that you will see in the FXRuby book, due out in approximately the year 
2020 ;)

Anyways, hope this is useful and please give me some feedback about what 
other kinds of information we can show here.

Thanks,

Lyle



-------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by:  Etnus, makers of TotalView, The best
thread debugger on the planet. Designed with thread debugging features
you've never dreamed of, try TotalView 6 free at www.etnus.com.
_______________________________________________
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[Fxruby-users] [ANN] Updated API Documentation

[Lyle J. <jl...@cf...>]

All,

I've completed the first pass through the FXRuby API documentation, 
which is posted here:

     http://www.fxruby.org/doc/api

By first pass, I simply mean that I think all of the classes and their 
methods and attributes are at least *listed* here. IMO this is now a 
much better choice than reading the C++ API documentation and trying to 
"translate" that from C++ to Ruby. For example, all of the messages that 
various widgets can send to their targets are documented.

More can and should be done. On the "second pass", I want to do a better 
job of documenting the types of the method arguments. For example, take 
a look at the documentation for FX4Splitter's initialize method:

     http://www.fxruby.org/doc/api/classes/Fox/FX4Splitter.html

Here, the individual method arguments and their types are listed in a 
sort of table, similar to the format used for JavaDoc. I'd like to use 
this approach throughout the documentation.

Another goal is to add short code examples, where appropriate. I'm 
trying to decide what is the right balance between reference 
documentation -- which is the intent -- and the more expositional style 
that you will see in the FXRuby book, due out in approximately the year 
2020 ;)

Anyways, hope this is useful and please give me some feedback about what 
other kinds of information we can show here.

Thanks,

Lyle

Re: [Fxruby-users] how to use textures in FXRuby

[Joel V. <vj...@PA...>]

This is resolved, thanks to Jeroen's reminder to make the context current.

I will post a link to some sample code to read .bmp files and use them 
as textures, if there is any interest.

Re: [Fxruby-users] FXGLLine in glviewer

[Joel V. <vj...@PA...>]

Lyle Johnson wrote:
> Joel VanderWerf wrote:
> 
>> I ran into this problem too, and never understood it. So I always 
>> append other shapes (such as a very narrow rectangle, instead of a line).
> 
> 
> Sounds like a bug to me, Peter and Joel.
> 
> I can't check it out right this minute, but I think I see the problem. I 
> don't think we ever call the base class version of initialize for 
> FXGLLine. See what happens if you modify lib/fox/glshapes.rb and add 
> this as the first line of FXGLLine's initialize method:
> 
>     super()
> 
> At any rate, I've added this to the bug list and will investigate for 
> myself as soon as possible.

That almost does it. You also need to define #bounds like this:

     def bounds
       FXRange.new([@fm.pos[0], @to.pos[0]].min,
                   [@fm.pos[0], @to.pos[0]].max,
                   [@fm.pos[1], @to.pos[1]].min,
                   [@fm.pos[1], @to.pos[1]].max,
                   [@fm.pos[2], @to.pos[2]].min,
                   [@fm.pos[2], @to.pos[2]].max)
     end

Re: [Fxruby-users] FXGLLine in glviewer

[Lyle J. <ly...@kn...>]

Joel VanderWerf wrote:

> I ran into this problem too, and never understood it. So I always append 
> other shapes (such as a very narrow rectangle, instead of a line).

Sounds like a bug to me, Peter and Joel.

I can't check it out right this minute, but I think I see the problem. I 
don't think we ever call the base class version of initialize for 
FXGLLine. See what happens if you modify lib/fox/glshapes.rb and add 
this as the first line of FXGLLine's initialize method:

     super()

At any rate, I've added this to the bug list and will investigate for 
myself as soon as possible.

Thanks for the bug report,

Lyle

[Fxruby-users] how to use textures in FXRuby

[Joel V. <vj...@PA...>]

Hi. Does anyone have any experience using textures in Fox or FXRuby?

I've played around with the texbind.rb example in the opengl 
distribution, and that works fine, but it's not Fox.

Now I'm trying to load the BMP file using FXBMPImage, and then use the 
GL calls as in texbind.rb to attach the texture to my object (a square). 
However, the very first GL call after initializing the FXBMPImage 
segfaults. I never even get to the point of actually handing over the 
image data to any GL routine.

I've got a slightly modifed version of the glviewer.rb example that 
shows what I'm trying to do:

http://PATH.Berkeley.EDU/~vjoel/ruby/bug.rb                (27k)
http://PATH.Berkeley.EDU/~vjoel/ruby/roadway_surface1.bmp (272k)

Put these in your FXRuby/examples dir to run them.

Re: [Fxruby-users] FXGLLine in glviewer

[Joel V. <vj...@PA...>]

Peter J. Puchyr wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm just trying to learn how to use OpenGL in FXRuby.  I tried
> to add the drawing of a line to the glviewer example, using a
> statement completely analogous to the other objects in the scene,
> namely,
> 
>   gp2.append(FXGLLine.new(-1.0,-1.0,-1.0, 1.0,1.0,1.0))
> 
> placed after the FXGLCylinder statement, and this produces the
> error message:
> 
>   in `append': This FXGLObject * already released (RuntimeError).
> 
> It makes no difference if I create and name the object in a separate
> statement, and then append it to the group of FXGLObjects; the error 
> still occurs with exactly the same message.
> 
> Have I done something completely stupid, or is this a bug?
> 
> Peter
> 

I ran into this problem too, and never understood it. So I always append 
other shapes (such as a very narrow rectangle, instead of a line).

Joel

[Fxruby-users] FXGLLine in glviewer

[Peter J. P. <PJP...@Sp...>]

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
  <title></title>
</head>
<body>
<font><tt><font color="#000000"><tt>
<pre>Hi,

I'm just trying to learn how to use OpenGL in FXRuby.  I tried
to add the drawing of a line to the glviewer example, using a
statement completely analogous to the other objects in the scene,
namely,

  gp2.append(FXGLLine.new(-1.0,-1.0,-1.0, 1.0,1.0,1.0))

placed after the FXGLCylinder statement, and this produces the
error message:

  in `append': This FXGLObject * already released (RuntimeError).

It makes no difference if I create and name the object in a separate
statement, and then append it to the group of FXGLObjects; the error 
still occurs with exactly the same message.

Have I done something completely stupid, or is this a bug?

Peter</pre>
</tt></font></tt></font>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="120">-- 
*************************************************
Peter J. Puchyr, M.Sc., P.Eng.
SpaceTime Simulation Corp.
#302, 112 - 34 Street N.W.
Calgary, Alberta
Canada   T2N 2X5
(403) 270-0489
</pre>
</body>
</html>

[Fxruby-users] FXGLLine in glviewer

[Peter J. P. <PJP...@UC...>]

Hi,

I'm just trying to learn how to use OpenGL in FXRuby.  I tried
to add the drawing of a line to the glviewer example, using a
statement completely analogous to the other objects in the scene,
namely,

  gp2.append(FXGLLine.new(-1.0,-1.0,-1.0, 1.0,1.0,1.0))

placed after the FXGLCylinder statement, and this produces the
error message:

  in `append': This FXGLObject * already released (RuntimeError).

It makes no difference if I create and name the object in a separate
statement, and then append it to the group of FXGLObjects; the error 
still occurs with exactly the same message.

Have I done something completely stupid, or is this a bug?

Peter

-- 
**************************************************************
Peter J. Puchyr, M. Sc., P. Eng.
University of Calgary
Dept. of Chemical & Petroleum Engineering
2500 University Drive NW
Calgary, Alberta   T2N 1N4
(403) 210-9772

Re: [Fxruby-users] New to list - general questions...

[Hugh S. S. E. E. <hg...@dm...>]

On Thu, 5 Jun 2003, ly...@kn... wrote:

>
> On Thu, 5 Jun 2003 16:20:45 +0100 (BST), Hugh Sasse Staff Elec Eng
> <hg...@dm...> wrote :
>
> > Could one apply the Mediator Pattern to this, and provide direct links
> > to where people need to go, rather than telling them to poke around
> > such and such websites?  I think that would be useful provided we
        [...]
>
> I'm not sure I follow what you mean by applying the Mediator pattern. Do you
> mean that our FXRuby FAQ might duplicate some of the questions found in
> other FAQ lists, but the answers to those questions would be hyperlinked to
> the other FAQ lists' answers?

Yes.  By saying "mediator pattern" I mean to take the concept of
linking directly to the disparate information sources in such a way
that it is effortless for the user of the FAQ (mediator) to access
them.  This amy be an analogy too far, || I may have misunderstood
the mediator pattern :-).   There could be a little supporting text
at our end, in the spirit of "Least Surprise".

> > >     http://www.fxruby.org/doc/api
> >
> > Yes, that's a nice job, coming along well.  Thanks.  Can this be
> > downloaded as a tgz, or zip file for browsing off-line please?
>
> Yes, I actually just uploaded a snapshot of those pages to the SourceForge
> site the other day:
>
>     http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=20243

Right. I think I have enough links for my FXRuby stuff to become a new
page.  Thanks
>
> > When I tried to run Rdoc on the FXRuby I'd downloaded I didn't get
> > so much documentation embedded.  If your using different/newer
        [...]
> There are some instructions here about how to check out the CVS sources
> (anonymously, with read-only access):
        [...]

Great. I'll try this out.  Thanks
>
        Hugh

Re: [Fxruby-users] New to list - general questions...

[<ly...@kn...>]

On Thu, 5 Jun 2003 16:20:45 +0100 (BST), Hugh Sasse Staff Elec Eng
<hg...@dm...> wrote :

> Could one apply the Mediator Pattern to this, and provide direct links
> to where people need to go, rather than telling them to poke around
> such and such websites?  I think that would be useful provided we
> can frame the questions so they are not brittle WRT version changes
> in FOX.  I think there may well be FXRubyists who never program FOX
> directly w/o ruby, so this would seem to be sensible from this
> viewpoint.

I'm not sure I follow what you mean by applying the Mediator pattern. Do you
mean that our FXRuby FAQ might duplicate some of the questions found in
other FAQ lists, but the answers to those questions would be hyperlinked to
the other FAQ lists' answers?

> >
> > Also, your first stop for reference documentation on the Ruby API should be
> > the docs found here:
> >
> >     http://www.fxruby.org/doc/api
> 
> Yes, that's a nice job, coming along well.  Thanks.  Can this be
> downloaded as a tgz, or zip file for browsing off-line please?

Yes, I actually just uploaded a snapshot of those pages to the SourceForge
site the other day:

    http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=20243

> When I tried to run Rdoc on the FXRuby I'd downloaded I didn't get
> so much documentation embedded.  If your using different/newer
> sources it would be nice to get hold of those so I can send you
> patches when I feel able to contribute.

There are some instructions here about how to check out the CVS sources
(anonymously, with read-only access):

    http://www.fxruby.org/doc/cvs.html

Those should have the very latest sources that I'm using (under the
rdoc-sources subdirectory).

Re: [Fxruby-users] New to list - general questions...

[Hugh S. S. E. E. <hg...@dm...>]

On Thu, 5 Jun 2003, ly...@kn... wrote:

> Yes. The list was only created the day before yesterday ;)

Oh! Thanks.
>
        [...]
Thanks for the Faq links.
> but you are correct that we don't have a FAQ list dedicated specifically to
> FXRuby. I guess part of the challenge will be figuring out which questions
> are FXRuby-specific and which questions are more in the domain of FOX

Yes, but then metaquestions can go in as well, "where should I look
for questions about ..."

> programming in general. For example, the FAQ about calling create() on
> windows, icons, etc. after the application's already running is a problem
> that any FOX programmer will confront at some point, whether he's using
> FXRuby, FXPy, EiffelFOX or, worst case, C++ ;)

Could one apply the Mediator Pattern to this, and provide direct links
to where people need to go, rather than telling them to poke around
such and such websites?  I think that would be useful provided we
can frame the questions so they are not brittle WRT version changes
in FOX.  I think there may well be FXRubyists who never program FOX
directly w/o ruby, so this would seem to be sensible from this
viewpoint.
>
> > And onto FXRuby itself:  Most of the API calls wrap C++ pretty
        [...]
> > FXinteger, or does one have to create the objects explicitly?  I
> > don't think I'd be able to infer this from looking at C++ docs.
>
> Yes, for the most part it should be a very obvious mapping from C++ to Ruby.
> If the C++ function expects a signed or unsigned integer type (i.e. FXshort,
> FXushort, FXint or FXuint) the Ruby method probably expects an Integer. If

Thank you.  I think this is something worth adding to a FAQ, since
it is implementation dependent (you *could* have chosen to make
FXushort construction explicit; I'm glad you didn't).
        [...]
> well, such as how arrays of values are passed back and forth. For a good
> summary of the kinds of differences to expect, see this chapter from the
> FXRuby documentation:
>
>     http://www.fxruby.org/doc/differences.html

Thanks, hadn't found that.
>
> Also, your first stop for reference documentation on the Ruby API should be
> the docs found here:
>
>     http://www.fxruby.org/doc/api

Yes, that's a nice job, coming along well.  Thanks.  Can this be
downloaded as a tgz, or zip file for browsing off-line please?

When I tried to run Rdoc on the FXRuby I'd downloaded I didn't get
so much documentation embedded.  If your using different/newer
sources it would be nice to get hold of those so I can send you
patches when I feel able to contribute.  [I'd actually rather not
have write access to cvs, because I'm not confident about using it,
and would hate to trash your CVS tree!]
>
> The problem is that those are still under construction (although I'm getting
> closer!). Use the C++ library's reference documentation as a fallback.
>
> Hope this helps,
>
> Lyle
>

        Thank you.
        Hugh

Re: [Fxruby-users] New to list - general questions...

[<ly...@kn...>]

On Thu, 5 Jun 2003 11:06:00 +0100 (BST), Hugh Sasse Staff Elec Eng
<hg...@dm...> wrote :

> My questions that I have now are:
> 
> The archive for the list seems to have only 2 messages in it.  Is
> that correct?

Yes. The list was only created the day before yesterday ;)

> There seems to be no FAQ for the list, and no FXRuby FAQ on the
> fxruby site.  Since I'm trying to learn this stuff I'm happy to
> create one.  Most of the FAQ tools I've heard of seem to be
> perlisms, so the obvious question is: What ruby ones exist?

There is a general FOX FAQ at the FOX web site:

    http://www.fox-toolkit.org/faq.html

as well as the FAQ at the FOX Community Wiki:

    http://www.fifthplanet.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?FAQ

but you are correct that we don't have a FAQ list dedicated specifically to
FXRuby. I guess part of the challenge will be figuring out which questions
are FXRuby-specific and which questions are more in the domain of FOX
programming in general. For example, the FAQ about calling create() on
windows, icons, etc. after the application's already running is a problem
that any FOX programmer will confront at some point, whether he's using
FXRuby, FXPy, EiffelFOX or, worst case, C++ ;)

> And onto FXRuby itself:  Most of the API calls wrap C++ pretty
> closely, so that they are often FXThingy.method(*args).  I can
> explore (and will do) the FOX docs some more, but are there mappings
> within the ruby so that Ruby "types" like integer get converted to
> FXinteger, or does one have to create the objects explicitly?  I
> don't think I'd be able to infer this from looking at C++ docs.

Yes, for the most part it should be a very obvious mapping from C++ to Ruby.
If the C++ function expects a signed or unsigned integer type (i.e. FXshort,
FXushort, FXint or FXuint) the Ruby method probably expects an Integer. If
the C++ function expects a floating point type, you should be able to pass
in *any* Ruby number. If the C++ function expects an FXString, you should be
able to pass in a Ruby String. Of course, there are some differences as
well, such as how arrays of values are passed back and forth. For a good
summary of the kinds of differences to expect, see this chapter from the
FXRuby documentation:

    http://www.fxruby.org/doc/differences.html

Also, your first stop for reference documentation on the Ruby API should be
the docs found here:

    http://www.fxruby.org/doc/api

The problem is that those are still under construction (although I'm getting
closer!). Use the C++ library's reference documentation as a fallback.

Hope this helps,

Lyle

[Fxruby-users] Re: Finding Fox still a problem :(

[Lyle J. <jl...@cf...>]

brett wrote:

> You are correct , I missed the install phase !!  because it was not in the 
> install instructions ?? -- It depends upon which version you read.
> The text file "install" misses the "ruby install.rb install" command.

Oops, you're right. I just updated the INSTALL file to include this last 
step.

> So I unzipped all the files again and ran the following commands
> as user BRETT --should I be ROOT ?

You should be able to do the 'config' and 'setup' steps as any user, but 
you will usually need to be logged in as root to do the 'install' step.

> In any case it did not work -- again.
> 
> By the way just what files, and where should they be?,  are Ruby actually 
> looking for with the
> 
> require 'fox'   command ??

When you do:

     require 'fox'

from Ruby, it is looking for the Ruby extension module named "fox.so". 
On your system, I'm pretty sure that would get installed as:

     /usr/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.6/i686-linux/fox.so

Some *.rb files should also get installed under this directory:

     /usr/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.6/fox

> 
> =====================
> Konsole output below.
> 

<... snip output from config, setup and install phases ...>

OK, this doesn't look right at all. I don't see any indication during 
the 'setup' phase that it's actually *doing* anything. This should be 
the longest part of the process, where it's compiling the C++ extension 
code. That also seems to be confirmed during the 'install' phase, since 
it installs all of the "pure Ruby" parts of FXRuby but it never installs 
the extension module part (fox.so).

I think the best thing to do is to start over from scratch with FXRuby:

  1. Completely wipe out the FXRuby-1.0.21 directory under
     your user account that you used to build the code. Leave
     no traces ;)

  2. Also wipe out whatever might have been installed to
     /usr/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.6/fox, and the fox.so file if it
     did actually get installed. Might be good to do a 'find' to
     see if it's hiding down there under /usr/lib/ruby/site_ruby
     somewhere.

  3. Start over. Unpack FXRuby-1.0.x.tar.gz under your user account,
     then follow the instructions to configure, setup and install
     the software. The 'config' step should take a few seconds to
     complete. The 'setup' step should take much longer, depending
     on fast your system is (count on 10-15 minutes I would guess).
     The 'install' step should only take a few seconds.

Hope this helps,

Lyle

P.S.

I am Cc'ing this reply to the newly-formed fxruby-users mailing list. It 
might be useful to you to subscribe to that list, as others may be able 
to advise you as well on these kinds of problems. For more information, 
see http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/fxruby-users.

[Fxruby-users] New to list - general questions...

[Hugh S. S. E. E. <hg...@dm...>]

I have just joined this list, and have a number of rather general
questions, but I hope to be able to contribute useful info myself
soon.

What I'm interested in doing is writing a GUI builder for FXRuby
which will do most of the management of the new(), create() and
other initialisation calls, so that code gets written in the right
order for things to work.   But this is a way down the road yet, as
I need to understand more to be able to write this correcly.

My questions that I have now are:

The archive for the list seems to have only 2 messages in it.  Is
that correct?

There seems to be no FAQ for the list, and no FXRuby FAQ on the
fxruby site.  Since I'm trying to learn this stuff I'm happy to
create one.  Most of the FAQ tools I've heard of seem to be
perlisms, so the obvious question is: What ruby ones exist?

And onto FXRuby itself:  Most of the API calls wrap C++ pretty
closely, so that they are often FXThingy.method(*args).  I can
explore (and will do) the FOX docs some more, but are there mappings
within the ruby so that Ruby "types" like integer get converted to
FXinteger, or does one have to create the objects explicitly?  I
don't think I'd be able to infer this from looking at C++ docs.


        Thank you,
        Hugh

[Fxruby-users] Re: FXRuby question - Getting the SEL_CHANGED event to work

[Lyle J. <ly...@us...>]

John Reed wrote:

> I'm trying to test if a combo box field in FXRuby has changed, to warn
> the user if they hit the Cancel button without saving their changes. 
> Here's the code:
> 
> def cancelentry(sender, sel, ptr)
> 
>     @@stacbo.connect(SEL_CHANGED) do
>      	 if MBOX_CLICKED_NO == FXMessageBox.question(self, MBOX_YES_NO,
>         		"Cancel Update", "Changes made, cancel update?")
>         		handle(nil, MKUINT(ID_CANCEL, SEL_COMMAND), nil)
>        		return 1
> 	end
>     end
> 
> end
> 
> The problem is that the code never displays the message box. What is
> the proper way to code for a SEL_CHANGED event?

The combo box sends a SEL_CHANGED message to its message target 
immediately after the change takes place. For what you're trying to 
accomplish, I think you just want to save the original state of the 
combo box when the dialog box is first initialized:

     def setup(originalValue)
       @originalValue = originalValue
       @stackbo = FXComboBox.new(...)
       @stackbo.setText(originalValue)
     end

and then compare the combo box's current state to this value when they 
click Cancel:

     def cancelentry(sender, sel, ptr)
       if @stackbo.getText() != @originalValue
         if MBOX_CLICKED_NO == FXMessageBox.question(...)
           handle(nil, MKUINT(ID_CANCEL, SEL_COMMAND), nil)
           return 1
         end
       end
     end

You could, alternately, catch the SEL_CHANGED message and set some state 
variable:

     def setup(originalValue)
       @theValueChanged = false
       @stackbo = FXComboBox.new(...)
       @stackbo.connect(SEL_CHANGED) {
         @theValueChanged = true
       }
     end

     def cancelentry(sender, sel, ptr)
       if @theValueChanged
         if MBOX_CLICKED_NO == FXMessageBox.question(...)
           handle(nil, MKUINT(ID_CANCEL, SEL_COMMAND), nil)
           return 1
         end
       end
     end

The problem with this approach (IMO) is that if they change the combo 
box's value from its original value to some new value, then change it 
*back* again before clicking Cancel, it will still show up as a 
"change". So for this kind of situation I prefer to just clone the 
original data the dialog box or form was initialized with, and then 
compare it against the form's current values at the end to decide if 
it's really been changed.

Hope this helps,

Lyle

[Fxruby-users] test message

[Lyle J. <jl...@cf...>]

Can you hear me now?