From: Aaron Sloman See text for reply address
Subject: Re: Converting Openlook to Motif
Date:
Message-ID: <64c3c9$aig@percy.cs.bham.ac.uk>
(Iain McKay) writes in comp.lang.pop:
> Thanks to everyone who has replied to my original post. I've
> been experimenting with Motif in POP11 and seem to have come
> to a problem I just cannot work out.
This is an excuse for me to announce that I've just installed
another (slightly experimental!) version of my RCLIB package in the
Birmingham poplog ftp directory
ftp://ftp.cs.bham.ac.uk/pub/dist/poplog/
This package, all implemented in Pop-11 using the objectclass
extension, enables creation of various kinds of control panels,
popup menus, sliders, text input fields, number input fields, along
with object oriented graphical facilities for creating static or
movable picture objects that can be made mouse or keyboard
sensitive. There's also a graphical version of showtree, i.e. you
can display trees in a graphic window instead of a Ved window.
There are also some demo libraries, e.g. a simplified variant of
Winograd's SHRDLU, a painting palette, etc.
Although it is all written in Pop-11, it can be linked to Prolog, or
Lisp or ML in the Poplog environment, which is why I am cross
posting to other groups. Apologies to readers without Poplog.
RCLIB gives far more control over layout, fonts, colours, etc. than
the Pop-11 Propsheet package although it does not (yet) include all
the Propsheet mechanisms, notably:
scrolling text (for which you can actually use Xved instead)
walking menus
The recently added text input and number input fields use a novel
interaction style: comments welcome. Like everything else in the
package this is easily extended by users at the Pop-11 level, e.g.
if you wish to define a new response to a particular function key
you can do so by redefining a method for your subclass.
The RCLIB sliders are not restricted to being horizontal or
vertical. You can specify arbitrary locations for both ends, and
also locations for attached labels and the panel showing the current
value. They are a subclass of the constrained_mover class which can
also be used to define circular sliders, etc.
RCLIB (unlike propsheet) makes no use of motif or openlook at all.
So it can be used on Linux poplog without buying a motif system,
though you first have to relink poplog to create a motif-free
executable. (You don't need to relink if you have motif: you can
then combine RCLIB with motif-based facilities, including
propsheet.)
You can use RCLIB to build control panels for driving VED or XVED,
and for asynchronous control of programs, friendly user interfaces,
etc.
The whole thing can be got in a compressed tar file which is updated
from time to time.
ftp://ftp.cs.bham.ac.uk/pub/dist/poplog/rctar.gz
Un-tar into $poplocal/local/ then in Pop-11 compile this file to
make everything accessible.
$poplocal/local/rclib/rclib.p
I have tried to make it completely independent of our local
pop-11 libraries at birmingham but may have slipped up. Please let
me know if you try it out and find problems.
Email ········@cs.bham.ac.uk
I would like to hear from anyone who has tried it out.
The code and documentation can be browsed online using a web browser
pionted at
ftp://ftp.cs.bham.ac.uk/pub/dist/poplog/rclib
To get a feel for what's there look at the introductory tutorial
file
ftp://ftp.cs.bham.ac.uk/pub/dist/poplog/rclib/teach/rclib_demo.p
and the main overview help file
ftp://ftp.cs.bham.ac.uk/pub/dist/poplog/rclib/help/rclib
(Needs a few recent changes to be added...)
The news file, which I try to keep complete, in bursts, shows recent
changes first
ftp://ftp.cs.bham.ac.uk/pub/dist/poplog/rclib/help/rclib_news
This package is being used to provide graphical input and output in
connection with the SIM_AGENT toolkit for exploring complex agent
architectures, also available from the ftp directory. See
ftp://ftp.cs.bham.ac.uk/pub/dist/poplog/README
and
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs/cog_affect/sim_agent.html
The latter includes pointers to some mpeg movies showing graphics
produced with the help of RCLIB.
Comments and suggestions welcome.
Aaron
===
--
Aaron Sloman, ( http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs )
School of Computer Science, The University of Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK
EMAIL A.Sloman at cs.bham.ac.uk(||| MAKE BULK EMAIL ADVERTS ILLEGAL |||)
Phone: +44-121-414-4775 (Sec 3711) Fax: +44-121-414-4281