From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_DATE autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,3503a5e0b88377c2 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 1994-11-28 20:15:34 PST Path: nntp.gmd.de!xlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!gatech!newsxfer.itd.umich.edu!zip.eecs.umich.edu!panix!cmcl2!jpmorgan.com!jpmorgan.com!usenet From: jgoodsen@trinidad.ny (John Goodsen) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Ada and graphics Date: 29 Nov 1994 02:18:57 GMT Organization: The Dalmatian Group, Inc. Distribution: world Message-ID: References: <1994Nov7.165001@mines.u-nancy.fr> <3aqj1c$mkk@cenerg.emn.fr> <3avnif$gkv@babyblue.cs.yale.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: trinidad.ny.jpmorgan.com In-reply-to: cosby@greatwall.cctt.com's message of 23 Nov 1994 15:36:46 GMT Date: 1994-11-29T02:18:57+00:00 List-Id: In article <3avnif$gkv@babyblue.cs.yale.edu> cosby@greatwall.cctt.com (John Cosby) writes: andrej@dec1 (J.C. ANDRE (Progfou)) wrote: >Boullier Marc (boulliem@mines.u-nancy.fr) a ecrit : >> I want to make graphics with ada but I have no library to help me >> Does someone know a little about X libraries for ada ? >P.S.: we use X11R5, DEC ADA. Ada bindings for Xlib and Xt exist, out there somewhere in Net.land. Check the Public Ada Library at wuarchive (info about it pops up in this newsgroup often). There may also be some in the ASSET repository; I haven't checked. Most Ada vendors will recommend a bindings vendor on request; try them. If you don't want to pay, you're going to be stuck with what you can get off the Internet; if you do want to pay, contact a bindings vendor (ATC, SERC, and Top GraphX come to mind). Each set of bindings has its own pros and cons; do some research before you pay. Bindings to Xlib/Xt are not often the solution you need, but many inexperienced developers take off down this path and waste a lot of time and money rebuilding something they would have been better off buying to get the graphics implemented. You should take a serious look at a *real* structured graphics engine, rather than hitting the low level Xlib intrinsics for your graphics. Unless you are doing anything but the most trivial graphics application, you will quickly have a need for a structured graphics toolkit... Ask yourself the following questions: 1. Will I require pointer hit detection on graphical objects? (e.g. click on a graphical object and detect which object was clicked upon) 2. Will you ever have to redraw the screen? (using raw xlib, graphics are not redrawn. You have to remember what you drew and always be prepared to redraw it whenever a user moves a window over your graphics) 4. Do you have the need to scale, rotate or otherwise deform your graphical objects? 3. Do you have a need for hierarchical graphical objects? (e.g. do you want composite graphical objects which allow you to scale, move, rotate a set of graphical objects independently from other graphical objects) 5. Will you ever need to run your application on a non X-window platform? (e.g. Windows, NT, etc...) too often this is the case, but is ignored until it becomes a problem at which point it can't be handled well. Check out HeraGraph from EVB Software Engineering (info@evb.com) if you want to see how snazzy, portable Ada graphics applications can be built in tens of lines of pure Ada code. Haven't seen anything else written in Ada that even compares closely to it... -- -- John Goodsen Currently on-site at: The Dalmatian Group JP Morgan User Interface Specialists 60 Wall St., New York City jgoodsen@radsoft.com jgoodsen@jpmorgan.com