This
is a great idea John!. I originally was using C++ Builder to design my
Win32::GUI forms so I could get the pixel coordinates. I'm anxious to try
letting your script create the perl GUI code for me. A Win32::GUI
forms designer is in progress (3 cheers to those doing it), but this seems to me
to be better solution (at least in the short term) since we are not
re-inventing the wheel writing a new IDE. In the long run it will be nice to
have a Win32::GUI designer that evolves with the Win32::GUI
Extension.
Eric
-----Original Message-----I have attached a perl script called "dfm2gui" that converts
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of John McNamara at Exponent Engineering
Sent: Sunday, December 12, 1999 5:08 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [perl-win32-gui] Converting Delphi/C++Builder Forms to Win32::GUI templates
Delphi/C++Builder Forms to Win32::GUI templates. This allows you to
use Delphi or C++Builder to design Win32::GUI windows and packages.
If you do not already use Delphi this script will be of little
interest to you.
This is a work in progress. Not all Delphi components are supported.
Not all GUI packages are supported. As it stands it will produce a
working Win32::GUI script to which you can add your own code.
In version 0.023 the following are implemented:
1. 19 of the Win32::GUI packages. See the %TControl hash.
2. Main menus.
3. Pop-up menus.
4. Inline bitmaps and icons.
5. Placeholder events.
The following items need work/implementation:
1. Indication of which objects weren't parsed to packages.
2. String items in ComboBoxes, Memos etc.
3. Fonts.
4. Some way of getting the images out of an Imagelist.
5. Toolbars.
6. Lots of other things.
The script will only work with text versions of a DFM. It calls an
external program to convert binary files as needed.
I have included some sample Delphi Forms and their Win32::GUI
equivalents. The script is used as follows:
Usage : dfm2gui input.dfm [output.pl]
Example: dfm2gui Myform.dfm Mygui.pl
Options: [output] If no output file is specified then the
filename of the input file is used and the
extension is changed.
Ciao,
John McNamara [EMAIL PROTECTED]
----------------------------------
Additional information:
If you haven't already used Delphi you probably don't want to go to
the trouble of learning it just to use it as a form builder for
Win32::GUI.
Delphi is Borland's Integrated Development Environment for the Object
Pascal language. As a concept it is quite similar to Visual Basic.
Both Delphi and C++Builder store information about Forms in a common
DFM format. Therefore, any of the following information about Delphi
is also applicable to C++Builder.
A Delphi "Form" is equivalent to a Win32::GUI Window with its
associated packages. The Form information is stored in a DFM file. In
Delphi 1 to Delphi 4 the DFM file is in a binary format. In Delphi 5
the Form can be stored as either binary or text.
Note: The Dfm2GUI script does not work with the binary version of DFM
files. It attempts to use the external dfm2txt utility to
convert binary forms to text prior to parsing.
A sample Delphi Form with a single button is stored as follows (some
information has been omitted for clarity):
object MainForm: TMainForm
Left = 192
Top = 133
Width = 256
Height = 158
Caption = 'Sample Delphi Form'
object Button: TButton
Left = 67
Top = 53
Width = 113
Height = 25
Caption = 'Hello from Delphi!'
end
end
This is parsed to the following Win32::GUI style data:
$MainForm = new Win32::GUI::Window(
-name => 'MainForm',
-left => 192,
-top => 133,
-width => 256,
-height => 158,
-text => 'Sample Delphi Form',
-visible => 1,
);
$MainForm->AddButton(
-name => 'Button',
-left => 67,
-top => 53,
-width => 113,
-height => 25,
-text => 'Hello from Delphi!',
);
For more information on Delphi try:
http://www.borland.com/delphi/
Dfm2GUI.zip contains the following:
dfm2gui.pl - The parsing script
dfm2txt.exe - A dos utility to convert binary forms to text
wdfm2txt.exe - A windows utility to convert binary forms to text
dfm2gui.txt - This text.
Demo.dfm - and Win32::GUI equivalent
Calc.dfm - and Win32::GUI equivalent
Hello.dfm - and Win32::GUI equivalent
Recurse.dfm - and Win32::GUI equivalent
Wdfm2txt.dfm - and Win32::GUI equivalent
Binary.dfm - Binary format of Wdfm2txt.dfm
