From: Chad Fowler <chad@...>
Date: 2004-04-07T20:24:12+09:00
Subject: Re: Idea: Simplified GTK


On 7/4/2004, at 5:29 AM, Hal Fulton wrote:

> Here's an idea. I've begun implementing it.
>
> Tell me why it's dumb, or what its shortcomings are.
>
> Put all your logic inside an App.logic (which will get called from
> App.run and wrapped with the stuff it needs). Afterward, call App.run
> itself.
>
> You automatically get one toplevel window, called @main in App.
> Everything in App.logic defaults to this as a container.
>
> When you create a container, you put a block on the constructor. Any
> widget (container or other) created in that block will belong to the
> current container. So the nesting of the block structure reflects the
> nesting of the containers.
>
> When you create a non-container, you put a block on the constructor.
> It will be associated with the "default" (most common) message for
> that widget.
>
> Here's some code. It works, for what it's worth.
>
>     require 'ez-gtk'
>     include EZ_GTK
>
>     def App.logic
>       @main.title = "My window"
>       @hb = HBox.new do
>         @vb1 = VBox.new do
>           @btn1 = Button.new("Do it") { puts "pressed btn1" }
>           @btn2 = Button.new("This too") { puts "pressed btn2" }
>         end
>         @vb2 = VBox.new do
>           @btn3 = Button.new("Third button") { puts "pressed btn3" }
>         end
>       end
>     end
>
>     App.run
>
>


Do you need the instance variables?  It seems like, in many cases, you 
wouldn't.  It's definitely nicer to look at like this:


     def App.logic
       @main.title = "My window"
       HBox.new do
         VBox.new do
           Button.new("Do it") { puts "pressed btn1" }
           Button.new("This too") { puts "pressed btn2" }
         end
         VBox.new do
           Button.new("Third button") { puts "pressed btn3" }
         end
       end
     end

I know you lose some flexibility (or you make it one level harder), but 
I can't help wanting it to look like this:

def app_logic
   main {
     hbox {
       vbox {
         button("Do it") { puts "pressed btn1" }
         button("This too") { puts "pressed btn2" }
       }
       vbox {
         button("Third button") { puts "pressed btn3" }
       }
     }
   }
end

Even if something like this (your idea) has some shortcomings, I still 
think it's worth doing.  It will be very useful for the situations when 
its shortcomings aren't an issue (for example, quick and dirty little 
GUI apps).

Now that I've commented, can I see the code? ;)

Chad