ANNOUNCE Visual Ada Developer VAD 2.1 Leonid Dulman

ANNOUNCE Visual Ada Developer VAD 2.1 Leonid Dulman

[dulman]

   V I S U A L    A D A   D E V E L O P E R  (VAD)

   Vad  is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
   modify it without restriction.

   VAD  is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
   but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty
   of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

            VAD 2.1 Common description.

1.  VAD ( Visual Ada Developer ) is a tcl/tk oriented Ada-95 GUI builder
which portable to difference platforms, such as Windows NT/9x,Unix(Linux),
Mac  and OS/2.

2. used software

   GNAT 3.11 Ada-95 compiler  ftp://cs.nyu.edu/pub/gnat

   TCL/TK 8.0.5 http://www.scriptics.com/software

   TASH 8.02 by Terry J. Westley  http://tash.calspan.com/

   IMG1.2 package  ftp://ftp.neosoft.com/pub/tcl/sorted/packages-8.0/graphics/Img/1.2/img12b1.exe
                   by Jan Nijtmans <Jan.Nijtmans@wxs.nl>.

   TkPaint   a simple Image Editor  http://www.netanya.ac.il/~samy/tkpaint.html

   RAPID-1 By Martin Carlisle

   BWIDGETS 1.2 tk extension http://www.unifix-online.com/BWidget

   McListbox,mcombobox by  Bryan Oakley <oakley@channelpoint.com>
             http://purl.oclc.org/net/oakley/tcl/mclistbox/index.html

   FTP_library by  Stefen Traeger  <Steffen.Traeger@t-online.de>
             http://home.t-online.de/home/Steffen.Traeger


  VAD generates and uses *.gui  file in text format for abstract
widgets  descriptions. This file has a simple format and may be corrected
manually. Program Adabuild generates Ada sources and tcl test script from it.

  Command format is : adabuild <project name>[.gui]

  VAD (Adabuild) generates next files :
  <project name>.adb - main ada program
  <project name>init.ads  - initialized gui package
  <project name>init.adb
  <project name>event.ads - Event handlers package
  <project name>event.adb ( empty functions for events).
  <project name>.tcl      - TCL script for quick check.

 VAD need system variable  VAD_HOME
 for example : SET VAD_HOME=C:\VAD2.1

  New project you may write with full path
  for example : d:\fly\report

    TCL/TK is a script language and it has many difference forms to
describe widget.

    For widget placing I use disp (layout) property with follow  means:
                             ----
        noplace (defaults)
        place
        grid
        pack

    and manager property  for tcl script building
        -------
    For example  for placing widget .w.b in pack layout need to write

       disp   :pack
       manager:.w.b -side top
   If you want to pack several widgets in one pack (for example 3)
look at packbuton.gui sample.

   In addcreate property you may write all addition information for widget
creation.

   I tried to write online help for many of used properties and simple
 samples. More complex sample is FTP ( 70 widgets).

  Unfortunately , if script has mistakes system generates EXCEPTION
and abnormal ended, but VAD tries to create ABEND.GUI file with
all entering widgets ( without last) and exception information in vad.prn
You may save building project part and continue work in VAD.


  Some changing in widgets you may see immediately (I recommend to save
information before property/event switching by click Add Widget/Correct Widget button)
, but global changing you  may see only after REDRAW ( menu TEST) execution.

 HELP menu allows by internal HTML viewer  ( I use HTML_LIBRARY package
 from sun)

   This is a version 2.1(beta) and it contains some bugs, but
 I hope it will useful for Ada programmers and easy in work. This is
 an effective way to build gui oriented system independent applications
 in pure ADA-95.

    VAD 2.1 supports many of image formats such as
BMP, XBM, XPM, GIF (with transparency), PNG, JPEG, TIFF and
postscript.  I use Img1.2 package

For formats difference from xbm and gif you may used jpeg image type.

  A simple free Image editor TKpaint (with little changing ) by Samy Zafrany

  An Adasource from image generator from RAPID  by Martin C. Carlisle
 and Patrick Maes.

   Widget Table

 1. Base  TCL/TK widgets

 toplevel frame button radiobutton checkbutton menubutton label entry
 listbox canvas message menu item scrollbox scale text

 2. BWidgets

Button Label Entry ListBox
ArrowButton ProgressBar MainFrame LabelFrame LabelEntry TitleFrame
Dialog ScrolledWindow PanedWindow ButtonBox NoteBook (Page) SpinBox
Tree MessageDlg ProgressDlg ScrollableFrame ScrollView PagesManager
PasswdDlg

3. Widgets from  Bryan Oakley

combobox mclistBox

4. Direct executable Tcl script

TclScript

  You may free download VAD 2.1 from http://ada95.freeservers.com/index.html
   VAD211.zip VAD212.zip VAD213.zip VAD214.zip VAD215.zip  VAD216.zip

 I am ready for any form of cooperation and thanks for any help.

 Regards

  Leonid Dulman(dulman@ibm.net)