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From: Peter Milliken <peter.milliken@boeing.com>
Subject: Re: Portable GUI in ADA ?
Date: 1999/06/24
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To: Jos De Laender <jos.de_laender@alcatel.be>
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Date: 1999-06-24T00:00:00+00:00
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Well, if Tash and Tcl/Tk don't strike your fancy by all means try
wxWindows(?) you can "bind" Ada95 to any other language, especially C and
C++. You'll just have to create your own bindings to the GUI (which is
exactly what Tash does for Tcl/Tk, so this will give you an idea of the
amount of work involved :-)).

There are tools in the Tcl/Tk world that produce stand-a-lone executables,
have you thought about calling your Ada code from within Tcl/Tk and then
using one of these "compilers" to generate the executable? I have never done
it but it shouldn't be too hard given that Tcl/Tk is meant to be extended by
the use of C, which means Ada95 can be used as well. Have a close read of
the LRM and GNAT documentation and you will see how Ada95 interfaces to
other languages. Then search dejanews for articles in the Ada newsgroup on
interfacing to C++ (name mangling in C++ seems to cause problems, I have
never tried it myself).

Personally I think persevering with the Tcl/Tk route is better, at least
Tash provides a set of thick/thin bindings as a good starting point.

Peter

Jos De Laender wrote:

>     Gentlemen,
>
>     I was looking for nearly free Gui (with some elementary Gui building
> assistance) in Ada95. Portability between Windows and Motif is also a
> concern.
>
>     This very group helped me with some pointers , but finally my quest
> ended with Tash+Rapid as the only candidate. It seems however a very
> indirect approach to me (needing a tcl/tk interpreter to which ada hooks
> in then) and my _feeling_ (sorry for that ;-) ) is that it is not a nice
> and clean approach.
>
>     I was wondering if something like wxWindows (C/C++) could not be
> ported or bound somehow to Ada95 ? Maybe it is not the cleanest program
> around neither, but it gives at least the possibility to produce
> standalone programs. Did someone try this already ? Would it be worth
> the effort ?
>
>     All comments, including those to correct my feeling ;-) , are
> welcome.
>
>     Best regards,
>
>     Jos (only speaking for himself, not for his company)