Re: GUI in Ada

Re: GUI in Ada

[Paul Whittington]

One way is to use Tcl/Tk and the TASH tools.


Christopher Raman wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Is there ways to build GUI applications in Ada? Either in UNIX or Windows?
> 
> Thanks,
> Chris

-- 
Paul Whittington
GrepNet, Inc.
paul@grep.net

"Even if you're on the right track you'll get
 run over if you stand still."

Will Rodgers

Re: GUI in Ada

[Markus Kuhn]

Christopher Raman wrote:
> Is there ways to build GUI applications in Ada? Either in UNIX
> or Windows?

There was an announcement that people are working on a GTK binding
for GNAT, but I don't know how far this has developped so far.
(Ask briot@gnat.com and jbrobecker@west.raytheon.com)

A GTK binding would be a major step to allow Ada programmers
to participate in the GNOME project, which works on a very cool
better-than-Windows98 GUI desktop environment for Unices. Another
important step would be a free Corba binding for Ada, since Corba
is the glue that will bind the GNOME applications together (like OLE
in Windows). Oliver.Kellogg@vs.dasa.de is working on a Corba binding.

http://www.gtk.org/
http://www.gnome.org/

I think these are clearly the way to go for Ada GUI projects.

Markus

-- 
Markus G. Kuhn, Security Group, Computer Lab, Cambridge University, UK
email: mkuhn at acm.org,  home page: <http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/>

GUI in Ada

[Christopher Raman]

Hi,

Is there ways to build GUI applications in Ada? Either in UNIX or Windows?


Thanks,
Chris

Re: GUI in Ada

[Gerhard H�ring]

There is even a way to build GUI applications with Ada that run in
*both* Unix and Windows. I use TASH, an Ada binding to TCL/TK, a script
language. Both the binding and TCL/TK are free, I recommend you also use
Visual TCL to build your GUI. 

Disadvantages:
You have to learn TCL, but it is a very simple language.
Advantages:
Compile your Ada source for Unix, Windows or Mac, use your TCL code in
Unix, Windows or Mac. No additional porting required!! Easy GUI
building: not as easy as Visual Basic, but at least as easy as building
GUI apps in (Visual) C++, for example. TCL/TK and most tools (Visual TCL
e.g.) are freeware.

TASH:
http://tash.calspan.com/

Visual TCL:
http://www.neuron.com/stewart/vtcl/

Christopher Raman wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Is there ways to build GUI applications in Ada? Either in UNIX or Windows?
> 
> Thanks,
> Chris

Re: GUI in Ada

[dennison]

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In article <360196CB.9EC3F20F@altoetting-online.de>,
  "Gerhard H�ring" <gerhard.haering@altoetting-online.de> wrote:
> *both* Unix and Windows. I use TASH, an Ada binding to TCL/TK, a script
> language. Both the binding and TCL/TK are free, I recommend you also use
> Visual TCL to build your GUI.
>
> Disadvantages:
> You have to learn TCL, but it is a very simple language.
> Advantages:
> Compile your Ada source for Unix, Windows or Mac, use your TCL code in
> Unix, Windows or Mac. No additional porting required!! Easy GUI
> building: not as easy as Visual Basic, but at least as easy as building
> GUI apps in (Visual) C++, for example. TCL/TK and most tools (Visual TCL
> e.g.) are freeware.

Wow. You sure didn't try real hard to find "Disadvantages". :-)

Is it still limited to compatability with only one or two compilers? I seem
to remember that being a problem. Lack of available tech support could be an
issue for some. There *are* some incompatabilities between the different
versions of TCL (I'm not so sure about TK).

That being said, I personally consider TASH one of the most promising
technologies for writing truly portable code in Ada. Its a shame it isn't
being worked on more vigorously.

--
T.E.D.

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http://www.dejanews.com/rg_mkgrp.xp   Create Your Own Free Member Forum

Re: GUI in Ada

[falis]

I've been working recently with Ainslie Software's AdaJNI 
(www.ainslie-software.com), that provides bindings to JDK 1.1.6 
and Swing 1.0.2, as well as a binding generator for arbitrary 
Java classes.

AdaJNI works with GNAT and ObjectAda (and probably without 
too much trouble with other compilers).

The idea is that the application runs as native Ada code and 
fires up a JVM for the UI and for any other Java parts one might 
wish to use.

So far, I've been able to set up connections to Marimba's Bongo 
GUI builder (www.marimba.com), which uses the old JDK 1.0 
event handling model (requires interpreting the events in your 
Ada event handler by mapping widget names to enumeration 
values, done by a simple generic I've written).  Bongo is pretty 
rich as a GUI builder, and is very easy to use, but it's product 
future is uncertain.  Note that despite the 1.0 event handling, 
you can still use JDK 1.1.x or 1.2 beta.

This week, I set up a similar harness for IBM's VisualAge for 
Java 2.0.  Still working out some generalizations in the harness.  
VA is a truly impressive IDE 
(http://www.software.ibm.com/ad/vajava/), for which you can 
download a free trial.  It allows you to visually build and 
compose arbitrary Java beans (including non-visual ones 
incorporating application logic).  This allows UI specific 
manipulations that you may not want to have your Ada code 
deal with to stay encapsulated in the GUI part.  It also supports 
Swing.

The harness I put together should allow arbitrary Java beans, 
not just those from VA, to be interfaced via AdaJNI.  I've been 
using it effectively with JDK 1.2 beta 4.

The advantage fo the bean approach is that the interface to the 
GUI or other java code is much better localized than for using 
Bongo, as the JDK 1.1+ event model is used.

Although I haven't had the opportunity to test any of this with 
UNIX compilers or GNAT, there's no theoretical reason that the 
applications shouldn't be completely portable, JVM 
implementation differences factored.

Just another approach to the problem.

- Ed Falis
Aonix  

Re: GUI in Ada

[Corey Minyard]

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dennison@telepath.com writes:
> In article <360196CB.9EC3F20F@altoetting-online.de>,
>   "Gerhard H�ring" <gerhard.haering@altoetting-online.de> wrote:
> > *both* Unix and Windows. I use TASH, an Ada binding to TCL/TK, a script
> > language. Both the binding and TCL/TK are free, I recommend you also use
> > Visual TCL to build your GUI.
> >
> > Disadvantages:
> > You have to learn TCL, but it is a very simple language.
> > Advantages:
> > Compile your Ada source for Unix, Windows or Mac, use your TCL code in
> > Unix, Windows or Mac. No additional porting required!! Easy GUI
> > building: not as easy as Visual Basic, but at least as easy as building
> > GUI apps in (Visual) C++, for example. TCL/TK and most tools (Visual TCL
> > e.g.) are freeware.
> 
> Wow. You sure didn't try real hard to find "Disadvantages". :-)
> 
> Is it still limited to compatability with only one or two compilers? I seem
> to remember that being a problem. Lack of available tech support could be an
> issue for some. There *are* some incompatabilities between the different
> versions of TCL (I'm not so sure about TK).
> 
> That being said, I personally consider TASH one of the most promising
> technologies for writing truly portable code in Ada. Its a shame it isn't
> being worked on more vigorously.
> 

I consider TASH pretty promising, too.  However, IMHO it is too
tightly bound to TCL and TK.  I'm currently working on extending my
ASL toolkit to support a more unbundled widget toolset.  I'm looking
at Tk and Java AWT for the underlying widget set so the code should be
very portable.  I'm currently studying the issue and prototyping some,
but the problem doesn't look insurmountable.  Expect a preliminary
release in a few weeks.

-- 
Corey Minyard               Internet:  minyard@acm.org
  Work: minyard@nortel.ca       UUCP:  minyard@wf-rch.cirr.com