Re: Problems with GtkAda-2.4.0 on Windows 2000.

[Jeff C <jcreem@yahoo.com>]

Marin David Condic wrote:
> I recently downloaded GtkAda for Windows and installed it and am having 
> problems getting it to operate. I have used earlier versions of GtkAda 
> and got them to work - if not perfectly, at least reasonably well. Can 
> anyone help with these issues?
> 
> Trying to build a simple "Hello World" program with a text window and a 
> "quit" button, I discover the following:
> 
> - Using the command line "gate" program to generate code, I notice that 
> it does NOT create a "gate" directory as it says it will in the 
> documentation and it used to do in earlier versions. Hence, it does not 
> keep a backup copy of the code and any hand-modified code is lost in 
> regenerating the project. The documentation says it won�t try to 
> preserve modifications for Windows systems, but it used to at one time. 
> Is there a way to get it to do this?

The problem is/was that there were issues with all of the various "sh" 
like interpreters around a while ago on some versions of windows such 
that various parameters were mangled. Also it increase the complexity of 
the distribution because then they were also distributing a shell 
interpreter.

I am sure you can get it all to work if you use msys and configure/build 
from a source distribution (pointing at one of the many existing binary 
Gtk+ installers) as long as you restrict yourself to "modern" windows 
like XP.



> 
> - Defining a source subdirectory and pixmap subdirectory in the project 
> options window seems to have zero effect if a simple name is used like 
> "src" and "pixmaps". Putting in a fully qualified directory name such as 
> "c:\hello_world\src" makes it lock up hopelessly. I don't have an 
> obvious clue as to what to expect these options to produce, but I'm 
> guessing they ought to have something to do with generating code in the 
> indicated subdirectory and looking for pixmaps in the indicated 
> subdirectory. Neither seems to happen.

No help on that one..sorry.




> 
> - When I created a window with a name of "Hello_World" and added the 
> "on_Hello_World_Delete_Event" signal, the code generation produced a 
> procedure with the name: "on_Hello world_Delete_Event" (note the space 
> in the middle of the identifier). Will gate/glade not handle a window 
> name with an underscore in it?
> 
> - When compiling the completely unmodified code as generated for the 
> simple app, I got the following output from gnatmake:
> 
> C:\Condic\ZZZ\Hello>gnatmake -Ic:\gtkada-2.4.0\include\gtkada hello_world
> gcc -c -Ic:\gtkada-2.4.0\include\gtkada hello_world.adb
> gcc -c -Ic:\gtkada-2.4.0\include\gtkada hello_world_pkg.adb
> gcc -c -Ic:\gtkada-2.4.0\include\gtkada callbacks_hello_world.ads
> gcc -c -Ic:\gtkada-2.4.0\include\gtkada hello_world_intl.adb
> gcc -c -Ic:\gtkada-2.4.0\include\gtkada hello_world_pkg-callbacks.adb
> gnatbind -aO./ -aOc:\gtkada-2.4.0\include\gtkada -I- -x hello_world.ali
> gnatlink hello_world.ali
> c:\gtkada-2.4.0\include\gtkada\\libgtkada.a(misc.o.b)(.text+0x327f): 
> undefined r
> eference to `SetCursorPos@8'
> gnatlink: cannot call C:\GNAT\bin\gcc.exe
> gnatmake: *** link failed.
> 
> Am I missing some compiler option or linker option necessary to get this 
> to work?


This is a packaging problem with the last public GtkAda release. It is 
unfortuntate because it really make GtkAda Windows support look even 
worse than it really is.

Take a look at
http://lists.adacore.com/pipermail/gtkada/2005-January/003203.html or 
more specifically the thread that starts with

http://lists.adacore.com/pipermail/gtkada/2005-March/003268.html




> 
> It seems that earlier versions of GtkAda did not have these problems. Or 
> they had a different set at least. I can't get very far with this as it 
> stands and I'd like to be able to use the latest version here rather 
> than revert to an earlier release. Can anybody provide any info? Thanks.
> 
> MDC
>