Hello: I announce my new project, FreeDOS DFlat +, as a set of libraries for easily designing text-mode user interfaces based on windowing and messaging, which has been excerpted out of FreeDOS EDIT 0.7d, in order to be used by other developers to create their text-mode user interface with windows, menus and mouse. The libraries in FreeDOS EDIT como from Dr. Dobb's D-FLAT, hence the name of "DFlat +", as I plan to continue development and bug fixing.
I have currently released the version 1.0.0 of the libraries, which you can find here: http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/devel/libs/dflat/ I have also compiled a new FreeDOS EDIT (ver 0.9a), that I'll announce later today, for DFlat+ 1.0. If you just want to create DFlat+-based programs, you mostly need the binary-only package. It contains pre-compiled libraries and headers for the C programming language, for the compilers Borland C/C++ 3.1 and OpenWatcom C/C++ 1.6. If you have one of those, you can start with only the binary. The documentation includes a simple HTML for newbies (the "Hello World" program is comented, and the sources are included in the binary package itself). As for the whole API, you should read (and include) the dflatp.h file, and I advise to read the Edit sources, that are now quite simple to read and understand. A final word about versioning of DFlat+. The following scheme will be used: X.Y.X X.Y will be meaningful for the user, and considered stable Z will be used for: - developer-oriented changes (not user) - bug fixing - unstable new things In the EDIT announcement, you'll see the changes to DFlat+ from FD-EDIT-DFLAT that are meaningful to the USER. ==== CHANGES FOR THE DFlat+ APPLICATION DEVELOPER (*) Open Watcom C/C++ support (previous was BC3 only) (*) Diferent scope or ranges for several objects, between the system-only DFlat+ developer stuff, and the DFlat+ application developer: - DFlat+ API functions and DFlat+ system internal functions - System messages and commands, and application messages and commands (*) New data types and functions to manipulate them: - The concept of "module", with name, description and version of the application - ColorScheme (with three pre-defined: color, bw, reverse, and methods to manipulate them) - VideoResolution (with three pre-defined: TXT25, TXT43 and TXT50, and methods to manipulate them) (*) Non-persistent system configuration (which now includes some Country settings) (note: it must the the application who is responsible to load/save the values that are configurable). (*) Common Dialogs: some of the most useful dialogs are precompiled: Open file, Save as file, Printer setup, System menu, etc. (*) New logging system, and ability to create debug/non-debug versions of applications by linking to one or another library. (*) Ability to install custom-defined help method, instead of EDIT's (which is available and optional). ==== CHANGES FOR THE DFlat+ DEVELOPER (*) Changed the values of the ChangeColor and ResetColor numbers, and this should improve usability for Cyrilic-font users. (*) FIX: ListBox uses the LB_SELECTION message to select one item, and was sending exactly the same message to parent. If parent was also a ListBox or descendant, then it got the item at the same position selection. Patch: use the LB_CHILDSELECTION to notify my parent of *my* selection. (*) Simplify the huge number of defines: no longer apply the policy of create a new DEFINE for every change made at the sourcecode. (*) A submenu is not a child of the menubar, but a child of its parent menu. Therefore, closing a submenu does not close the whole cascade, but only itself. (*) PLEASE, if interested in helping out, I beg you to let me know, as I have currently a "multi-threaded" developments in my PC, in order to stay sync-ed. === KNOWN ISSUES: - The yes/no boxes and similar do return "NO" if the box is cancelled/closed. - The drop-down combo does not get cancelled when it loses focus Happy programming! Aitor ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK & win great prizes Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100&url=/ _______________________________________________ Freedos-devel mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
