Re: What is the minimum number of lines to update a gui window without user clicking a button
Do you see any technical problems with what I posted? Eventually, yes. It depends on the observed execution speed in your application for example. When would you categorise the situation that a specific graphical user interface becomes unresponsive? Do you expect visual feedback in less than a second for your programs? Do you think you could make it more efficient? There are more aspects to consider besides efficiency. How do you think about to apply the design pattern Model-View-Controller? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model%E2%80%93view%E2%80%93controller Then, instead of writing three lines to update the gui window, I'd be able to type: gprint(Updated text); Such a desire is fine until you clarify a few more implementation details. Regards, Markus ___ gtkmm-list mailing list gtkmm-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtkmm-list
Re: What is the minimum number of lines to update a gui window without user clicking a button
On 08/19/2013 02:28 AM, Markus Elfring wrote: Do you see any technical problems with what I posted? Eventually, yes. It depends on the observed execution speed in your application for example. When would you categorise the situation that a specific graphical user interface becomes unresponsive? Do you expect visual feedback in less than a second for your programs? The program executes. The gui is updated in a faction of a second. If I placed a left a button there as I find in most of the examples it would take longer to see the update because a person can't press a button in less than a faction of a second. But again, my code doesn't experience any delay that I can identify. The output is just as immediate as I can see as if it were output with cout to standard out. As far as you seeing a technical problem, is it possible that you could post some code that would actually work to identify the problem? Also do you see the same problem with the code supplied by Alan and discussed in depth here: https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gtkmm-list/2013-August/msg00052.html I tried to model my code based on what I learned from there and from what Kjell provided, as well as everything I can see in the documentation. I don't understand how it differs from Alan's code except mainly that I change it from the Label widget to a textview widget. I was hoping to have the simplest example so that I could use the example to test various widgets and get a good grip on how to build my own. Do you think you could make it more efficient? There are more aspects to consider besides efficiency. How do you think about to apply the design pattern Model-View-Controller? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model%E2%80%93view%E2%80%93controller I studied the link you provided above. I can't say I fully understand it. I had studied it before I asked the group for help, of which I received Alan's example that worked. Then, instead of writing three lines to update the gui window, I'd be able to type: gprint(Updated text); Such a desire is fine until you clarify a few more implementation details. I don't currently know how to implement the gprint() goal. But I'm working on it. When my current position is clean enough for a discussion I will present it in a different thread, unless someone else sees the answer while reading this thread and brings it up. Currently if the lines of code that I have already posted could be improved that would satisfy the namesake of this thread. Of course if I could see some code example of the problem that you're describing with my current code, that would be great! I'd be glad to work with it and see the functionality. But so far all the technical suggestions that I'm getting appears to actually already be implemented in the 47 lines of code that I published. -- L. James -- L. D. James lja...@apollo3.com www.apollo3.com/~ljames ___ gtkmm-list mailing list gtkmm-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtkmm-list
Re: What is the minimum number of lines to update a gui window without user clicking a button
As far as you seeing a technical problem, is it possible that you could post some code that would actually work to identify the problem? Your function HelloWorld::cpp_app indicated in this example that it will execute for some seconds. I got doubts that the graphical user interface will be as responsive as you might expect it. A well-known approach is to perform long lasting data processing in a dedicated thread which is separate from the one which serves the user interface. You need to be very careful with synchronisation so that you avoid thread-unsafe data accesses. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronization_%28computer_science%29 I can't say I fully understand it. Do you like a different description about GUI architectures? http://martinfowler.com/eaaDev/uiArchs.html Regards, Markus ___ gtkmm-list mailing list gtkmm-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtkmm-list
Re: What is the minimum number of lines to update a gui window without user clicking a button
On 08/19/2013 05:22 AM, Markus Elfring wrote: As far as you seeing a technical problem, is it possible that you could post some code that would actually work to identify the problem? Your function HelloWorld::cpp_app indicated in this example that it will execute for some seconds. I got doubts that the graphical user interface will be as responsive as you might expect it. A well-known approach is to perform long lasting data processing in a dedicated thread which is separate from the one which serves the user interface. You need to be very careful with synchronisation so that you avoid thread-unsafe data accesses. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronization_%28computer_science%29 Thanks, Markus. While I can't understand what you're suggesting, I really appreciate the input as well as the specifics. I have all the documentations that the users from the list has given me. I'm studying all of it. It's a lot for a novice. But I'm not taking any of it light. Most of the details don't have examples that I can test and I'm spending a lot of time cross referencing trying to understand the terms in the technical documentations. As far as the function executing for some seconds, it executes for fractions of a second, minutes, hours, perfectly totally as I expect as well as totally as desired. As far as I can see, the function that you picked out is the exact function that was provided to me by Alan, and discussed by a number of the professionals in this mail list as being functional. The only difference as I can see is the name. I took Alan's code and tried to learn it in such that I could rewrite it and give descriptive names according to what I was looking for the function to do. I also changed the widget from label to textview. Can you tell me what is different between the two functions: My example: HelloWorld::cpp_app Alan's example: myLabel::myprocess1 By the way, I left the HelloWorld part because I was trying to keep it as consistent with the example in the documentation tutorial as possible. The class and function names are different in my actual application. I'm able to make this differences because (I thought) I had come to understand what Kjell and Alan had given me. I'm not good enough to read the highly technical links that you're providing me with to make radical changes to the code at this point. Kjell recognized the tutorial conatains a chapter on multi-threaded programs (from this message: New multi-threaded example program in the gtkmm tutorial: https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gtkmm-list/2013-August/msg00055.html He indicated that it lacked an example. The lack of example makes it hard for a novice to grasp (as in my case). So after Alan's assistance, which actually resolved my issue, Kjell added a tutorial with an example, which I tried to model my code after. If there is a difference between Alan's code and my updated version, I'd appreciate knowing the difference. I still wouldn't be able to change it without an example of the specific lines that would fix it. Any changes that I made will actually brake the code and the gui window would lost it's responsiveness, or not display at all. This was happening when I simply tried to change Alan's code from a label widget to a textview widget. The lost of functionality was the purpose of this thread. I was hoping to see the bare essentials. I thought, after many hours that I had found the key (studying Alan's and Kjell's examples). I'm studying in detail the links that you're providing, but I can't see from those links what specific I should change and still have the code function as desired. -- L. James -- L. D. James lja...@apollo3.com www.apollo3.com/~ljames I can't say I fully understand it. Do you like a different description about GUI architectures? http://martinfowler.com/eaaDev/uiArchs.html Regards, Markus ___ gtkmm-list mailing list gtkmm-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtkmm-list
Re: Conflict between windows.h and giomm/dbusmessage.h (2)
I already answered to your previous mail, I don't know why you didn't receive my reply. But you can read it on the mail archive: https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gtkmm-list/2013-August/msg00115.html Am 18.08.2013 15:19, schrieb John Emmas: On 15/08/2013 10:20, John Emmas wrote: I discovered this problem while building with VC++8. Maybe someone can confirm if it also affects later versions of MSVC? #include windows.h #include giomm.h // ( or alternatively, #include giomm/dbusmessage.h ) Creating a source file with just those 2 lines gives me the following compiler error:- dbusmessage.h(353) : error C2332 'struct' : missing tag name Line 353 of 'dbusmessage.h' looks like this:- static Glib::RefPtrMessage create_signal(const Glib::ustring path, const Glib::ustring interface, const Glib::ustring signal); I think it's the use of the name interface that's causing the conflict. In my VC IDE, the word interface gets printed in blue which usually indicates that it's a reserved word. Sorry to bump this but is anyone looking into it? A few minutes ago I discovered that even the following 2 lines will fail if compiled in Debug mode:- #define _CRTDBG_MAP_ALLOC #include gtkmm.h It's becoming near impossible to build glibmm and gtkmm using MSVC any more. I honestly think someone should be assigned to investigate these problems before too many of them creep in... :-( John ___ gtkmm-list mailing list gtkmm-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtkmm-list ___ gtkmm-list mailing list gtkmm-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtkmm-list
Re: What is the minimum number of lines to update a gui window without user clicking a button
I'm studying in detail the links that you're providing, but I can't see from those links what specific I should change and still have the code function as desired. I'm curious when you start playing around with software design extensions for your small program example. ;-) Regards, Markus ___ gtkmm-list mailing list gtkmm-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtkmm-list
Re: What is the minimum number of lines to update a gui window without user clicking a button
On 08/19/2013 11:50 AM, Markus Elfring wrote: I'm studying in detail the links that you're providing, but I can't see from those links what specific I should change and still have the code function as desired. I'm curious when you start playing around with software design extensions for your small program example. ;-) Regards, Markus I don't know what you mean by design extensions. But I started out programming in assmebly language in the Late 70's. I went to C in the early 80's. It was all in DOS, not Windows. In the late 90's I started using a semi graphical interface by programming perl CGI. I also started using Visual C++ and the MFC environment around that time. Maybe it's the MFC that you're referring to in playing around with software design extensions. For MFC in Visual Studio you basically just draw a box, then output your text to that box with a single line (much like the gprint function I want to design for gtkmm/C++). In around 2005 I started programming in Java (no gui). Then around 2010 I started programming in Java GUI. In 2011 I started programming for the Android. The interface basically used a screen for drawing the window, then a single line to update the text in the window. I started doing the same with Java Applications and Java Applets early this year. Last month I started trying to do the same thing that I was doing with Java (Applications, Applets, and the Android) with C++ via Gtkmm... thus hear I am. So, I'm not new to programming, but playing around with software design extensions is probably something new. Somewhere in between those stages I played with python, mono, and a few other languages. But I never did much productive work, just experiments with them. All the others has easy ways of updating the gui window. At first Gtkmm appeared to be the only interface that didn't have an easy way to update the gui window with new text. The more I play with it, the more it appears to be rather easy. I don't believe it's as complicated as many appears to be saying it is. Looking at most of Alan's messages I believe he gave me most of the code from his phone while he was traveling. A couple of times he asked me to wait a couple of days while he got to his computer so the he could run some test. So, most likely the best answer is that I'm just starting out, playing with software design extensions... maybe in the most definitive terms, I might not have quiet started out yet. I'm mainly just using the simple lines of code provided to me by Alan and Kjell and sending text to the gui window. At present it's working perfectly. Basically I just want to display text to my clients in some manner that it doesn't appear as if the OS is broken. Most of the times when I ask a client to read to me what they see, when they see a black screen, they say they don't see anything. It takes a while for them to realize the black screen has usable information. I'm starting to send the same text to a graphical window. My clients has no problems reading that screen and relating to me what they see. -- L. James -- L. D. James lja...@apollo3.com www.apollo3.com/~ljames ___ gtkmm-list mailing list gtkmm-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtkmm-list
Re: What is the minimum number of lines to update a gui window without user clicking a button
On 19/08/2013 19:38, L. D. James wrote: I'm not new to programming, but playing around with software design extensions is probably something new. Somewhere in between those stages I played with python, mono, and a few other languages. But I never did much productive work, just experiments with them. All the others has easy ways of updating the gui window. At first Gtkmm appeared to be the only interface that didn't have an easy way to update the gui window with new text. The more I play with it, the more it appears to be rather easy. I don't believe it's as complicated as many appears to be saying it is. Although it won't help you directly with gtkmm, I would HIGHLY recommend you to buy Andrew Krause's book Foundations of GTK+ development. I came from a background with MFC and quite frankly, I found GTK+ to be plain weird after the simplicity of MFC. However I found it much easier to understand GTK+ after reading Andrew's excellent book. Any good technical bookshop should be able to get it for you. John ___ gtkmm-list mailing list gtkmm-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtkmm-list
Re: What is the minimum number of lines to update a gui window without user clicking a button
I don't know what you mean by design extensions. I find that strange to some degree ... But I started out programming in assmebly language in the Late 70's. I went to C in the early 80's. It was all in DOS, not Windows. In the late 90's I started using a semi graphical interface by programming perl CGI. I also started using Visual C++ and the MFC environment around that time. I assume that you are used to the selection and application of design patterns if you mention such a long software development experience. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_design_pattern Most of the times when I ask a client to read to me what they see, when they see a black screen, they say they don't see anything. It takes a while for them to realize the black screen has usable information. How do you think about any fine-tuning for text colours in your log console? Might a Curses-based user interface also be sufficient for your use case? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curses_%28programming_library%29 Regards, Markus ___ gtkmm-list mailing list gtkmm-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtkmm-list
Re: What is the minimum number of lines to update a gui window without user clicking a button
On 08/19/2013 04:18 PM, Markus Elfring wrote: I don't know what you mean by design extensions. I find that strange to some degree ... I've mentioned numerous times that I have some glitches in my experience. I never took up formal education in programming. I studied business and accounting in college. I'm self taught in programming. While I'm self-taught, I do tutor college students who has come to me, often, when they were failing and getting D's. With my assistance it always changes to A's. The owner of one of the most prominent entities on the web was tutored by me. But, yes. I have some real glitches. Some of the gaps are being filled in by the discussions of the threads I have started in this maillist. But I started out programming in assmebly language in the Late 70's. I went to C in the early 80's. It was all in DOS, not Windows. In the late 90's I started using a semi graphical interface by programming perl CGI. I also started using Visual C++ and the MFC environment around that time. I assume that you are used to the selection and application of design patterns if you mention such a long software development experience. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_design_pattern Thanks for the definition of software design pattern. And based on what I have just read, I have been using it. I just never used the term. I also promote this in my tutoring. I'm sure it's a component of software design pattern of which the namesake of this thread is about. I have a goal of easily updating a gui window with new text. While that code is working fine (as provided by Alan), I still look forward to implementing a gprint function to consolidate 3 lines into one line. The code to do that might take months and end up being a couple of hundred lines. Just as, I haven't explored the code involved in the function, cout, but I'd be surprised if it's less than a couple of hundred lines. The namesake of this thread is to first understand how to actually achieve an update to the gui window, of which I published the code. You're saying it's broke. While it appears to work perfectly in every way, I'd be glad to see some code that I could test that wouldn't be broken according to your expertise. I sincerely appreciate the jargon that I'm learning in the meantime. Most of the times when I ask a client to read to me what they see, when they see a black screen, they say they don't see anything. It takes a while for them to realize the black screen has usable information. How do you think about any fine-tuning for text colours in your log console? Might a Curses-based user interface also be sufficient for your use case? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curses_%28programming_library%29 Every thing you mention can be an enhancement. The examples in the gtkmm documentation has lots of font controls, word wrappings, window scrolling and many other features. The examples were rather confusing for me as a beginner. I'm sure I can add a lot of highlights and decorations now. But I can't emphasis how important I consider having the rawest and most basic (blank) slate to begin with. The absolute only thing that matters at this point is for me to actually be able to have a gui window and update it with appended or new text. I'd appreciate some validation from you if I have gotten it right (to be able to append text to a blank window), or an example that you consider more right than the code assistance I currently have from Alan. I haven't experimented with colors, but I did very easily change the fonts. I'm sure changing the colors would be just as easy. My main reason for switching from the label widget of the original code from Alan to the textview widget is because in my research it appeared that font and text output manipulation was easier with the textview widget. Thanks! -- L. James -- L. D. James lja...@apollo3.com www.apollo3.com/~ljames ___ gtkmm-list mailing list gtkmm-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtkmm-list
Re: What is the minimum number of lines to update a gui window without user clicking a button
On 08/19/2013 05:57 PM, Andrew Potter wrote: I've changed Example 4 to use a TextView instead of a Label and renamed report_progress() to gui_print(). Thanks, Andrew. Your gui_print() function appears to be exactly what I was trying to accomplish in my next stage. At present I'm working with it to make it append the text rather than replace the text displayed. I really appreciate your taking the time to understand the question. -- L. James -- L. D. James lja...@apollo3.com www.apollo3.com/~ljames ___ gtkmm-list mailing list gtkmm-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtkmm-list
Re: What is the minimum number of lines to update a gui window without user clicking a button
Quoth Andrew Potter:
void gui_print(const Glib::ustring str) {
/* Get a function pointer to the set_text method we want to
* use. We must explicitly declare the method pointer
* signature because Gtk::TextBuffer::set_text is an
* overloaded method. */
void (Gtk::TextBuffer::*fptr)(const Glib::ustring) =
Gtk::TextBuffer::set_text;
/* Create a functor that points at the TextBuffer method we
* want to use. Because tb is a Glib::RefPtr and sigc::mem_fun
* needs the actual Gtk::TextBuffer object, we must use
* operator-(). See GNOME Bugzilla #495762. */
sigc::slotvoid, const Glib::ustring set_text_functor =
sigc::mem_fun(tb.operator-(), fptr);
/* Bind the arguments of the functor to create a
* sigc::slotvoid that can be sent to the callback
* dispatcher.
*/
sigc::slotvoid bound_functor = sigc::bind(set_text_functor,
str);
/* callback_dispatcher can execute any sigc::slotvoid on the
* Main Loop. Since we have one now, send it.
*/
callback_dispatcher.send(bound_functor);
}
Given that sigc magic is hard for many people, you might want to simplify
this with a helper method:
// Called from the blocking operation in the worker thread
void gui_print(const Glib::ustring str) {
sigc::slotvoid, const Glib::ustring print_functor =
sigc::mem_fun(this, Example::gui_print_ui);
sigc::slotvoid bound_functor = sigc::bind(print_functor, str);
callback_dispatcher.send(bound_functor);
}
// Called on the UI thread when the worker thread calls gui_print
void gui_print_ui(const Glib::ustring str) {
tb-set_text(str);
}
This would make it easier for people to modify the actual action taken in
gui_print_ui.
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Re: What is the minimum number of lines to update a gui window without user clicking a button
Adding these methods to the Example class show how you can use a local
helper function. The downside is you having an extra method lying
around and remembering to use the right one in the right context; in
C++11 you could get rid of gui_append_mainloop() by using a lambda.
Edit: This uses the approach Gavin just suggested. He's right in that
I probably should have used that approach in the first place.
// Extra methods for Example 5
/* Append to the textbuffer in a thread UNsafe manner. Should only
* be used on the Main Loop. */
void gui_append_mainloop(const Glib::ustring str) {
Glib::ustring text = tb-get_text();
text += \n + str;
tb-set_text(text);
}
/* Threadsafe access to gui_append_mainloop */
void gui_append(const Glib::ustring str) {
callback_dispatcher.send(sigc::bind(sigc::mem_fun(this,
Example::gui_append_mainloop), str));
}
// Extra methods for Example 5
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RE: What is the minimum number of lines to update a gui window without user clicking a button
I have unsubscribed from this list, please delete me from the list.
-Original Message-
From: gtkmm-list [mailto:gtkmm-list-boun...@gnome.org] On Behalf Of Andrew
Potter
Sent: Monday, August 19, 2013 7:08 PM
To: L. D. James
Cc: gtkmm-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: What is the minimum number of lines to update a gui window without
user clicking a button
Adding these methods to the Example class show how you can use a local helper
function. The downside is you having an extra method lying around and
remembering to use the right one in the right context; in
C++11 you could get rid of gui_append_mainloop() by using a lambda.
Edit: This uses the approach Gavin just suggested. He's right in that I
probably should have used that approach in the first place.
// Extra methods for Example 5
/* Append to the textbuffer in a thread UNsafe manner. Should only
* be used on the Main Loop. */
void gui_append_mainloop(const Glib::ustring str) {
Glib::ustring text = tb-get_text();
text += \n + str;
tb-set_text(text);
}
/* Threadsafe access to gui_append_mainloop */
void gui_append(const Glib::ustring str) {
callback_dispatcher.send(sigc::bind(sigc::mem_fun(this,
Example::gui_append_mainloop), str));
}
// Extra methods for Example 5
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