Ada GUI for Windows and Linux

Ada GUI for Windows and Linux

[Frank J. Lhota]

My company is doing maintenance work on a very large Ada program that has
been ported to NT. Currently, we are using the ObjectAda compiler. Our
client is very interested in adding a GUI to this program. This could be
done a number of ways. A thin binding for Win32 comes with ObjectAda
(win32ada). R&R (the JanusAda people) provide a thicker binding (Claw) to
the Win32 API.

We need to be careful as to how to approach this, however, for our client
has also expressed an interest in porting this program to Linux. It would
therefore be foolish to implement the GUI stuff in a highly Win32-specific
fashion.

The Claw library provides a clean interface to the windows GUI facilities,
and is available for all the NT-based compilers, including ObjectAda. To my
knowledge, however, there is no Linux port of Claw, and without such a port,
this will not help us make the transition to Linux.

The GtkAda library does provide a GUI interface for both Windows and Linux,
and would allow us to code the GUI for both OS's. The only problem is that
AFAIK there is not an ObjectAda version of GtkAda, so we would have to
rehost a lot of code to GNAT, as well as requiring that some fellow
contractors to convert their work to GNAT. It is doable, but painful and
politically unpopular.

The XML / GUI solution sounds great, but we need a solution that exists now.

How would you recommend we approach this? Is there a Linux port of Claw? An
ObjectAda version of GtkAda? Or is there some other solution that would
allow us to add a GUI to the windows version of this program that could
easily moved to Linux?

Thanks in advance for any help you could provide in this matter.

Re: Ada GUI for Windows and Linux

[Preben Randhol]

On Wed, 11 Sep 2002 16:48:47 GMT, Frank J. Lhota wrote:
> My company is doing maintenance work on a very large Ada program that has
> been ported to NT. Currently, we are using the ObjectAda compiler. Our
> client is very interested in adding a GUI to this program. This could be
> done a number of ways. A thin binding for Win32 comes with ObjectAda
> (win32ada). R&R (the JanusAda people) provide a thicker binding (Claw) to
> the Win32 API.

GtkAda => http://libre.act-europe.fr/GtkAda/

Preben

Re: Ada GUI for Windows and Linux

[Eric Merritt]

Depending on what kind of gui you are trying to create
you could always create a web driven gui using AWS. If
its mostly disply and form style input and output this
will get you what you need.


--- "Frank J. Lhota"
<NOSPAM.lhota.adarose@verizon.net> wrote:
> My company is doing maintenance work on a very large
> Ada program that has
> been ported to NT. Currently, we are using the
> ObjectAda compiler. Our
> client is very interested in adding a GUI to this
> program. This could be
> done a number of ways. A thin binding for Win32
> comes with ObjectAda
> (win32ada). R&R (the JanusAda people) provide a
> thicker binding (Claw) to
> the Win32 API.
> 
> We need to be careful as to how to approach this,
> however, for our client
> has also expressed an interest in porting this
> program to Linux. It would
> therefore be foolish to implement the GUI stuff in a
> highly Win32-specific
> fashion.
> 
> The Claw library provides a clean interface to the
> windows GUI facilities,
> and is available for all the NT-based compilers,
> including ObjectAda. To my
> knowledge, however, there is no Linux port of Claw,
> and without such a port,
> this will not help us make the transition to Linux.
> 
> The GtkAda library does provide a GUI interface for
> both Windows and Linux,
> and would allow us to code the GUI for both OS's.
> The only problem is that
> AFAIK there is not an ObjectAda version of GtkAda,
> so we would have to
> rehost a lot of code to GNAT, as well as requiring
> that some fellow
> contractors to convert their work to GNAT. It is
> doable, but painful and
> politically unpopular.
> 
> The XML / GUI solution sounds great, but we need a
> solution that exists now.
> 
> How would you recommend we approach this? Is there a
> Linux port of Claw? An
> ObjectAda version of GtkAda? Or is there some other
> solution that would
> allow us to add a GUI to the windows version of this
> program that could
> easily moved to Linux?
> 
> Thanks in advance for any help you could provide in
> this matter.
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> comp.lang.ada mailing list
> comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org
> http://ada.eu.org/mailman/listinfo/comp.lang.ada


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Re: Ada GUI for Windows and Linux

[achrist]

Eric Merritt wrote:
> 
> Depending on what kind of gui you are trying to create
> you could always create a web driven gui using AWS. If
> its mostly disply and form style input and output this
> will get you what you need.
> 

This is indeed close to very good.  But the world has been trying 
to do more with such GUI's that are not tightly coupled to the
application.  Java was supposed to do this.  Javascript and Flash
are now popular.  Microsoft does this with ActiveX, but it's not
portable.  There is a near continuum of options available.

I mentioned XUL because the article said that it was becoming popular.
It seems to me that Ada gains if it can talk to the same API's that
other languages talk to, and that Ada gains if language-neutral API's
succeed.  

Creating an application with AWS does present some challenges compared
to doing it with typical RAD/GUI development.  If the user's progress
through the UI is possibly lengthy and flexible, two UI questions are
problematic (at least for me)  (1) What happens if the user hits
the 'Back' button? (if you've got session info, you will want unlimited
undo support to roll it back) and (2) What happens if the user hits the 
'Open in New Window' button? (how to fork a session?  The 'New Window' 
in IE also duplicates the current page).
 

Al

Re: Ada GUI for Windows and Linux

[Adrian Knoth]

Frank J. Lhota <NOSPAM.lhota.adarose@verizon.net> wrote:

> The only problem is that AFAIK there is not an ObjectAda version of GtkAda, 

I'm not quite sure but afaik is GtkAda GNAT-depended because of some
GNAT-specific Pragmas. Perhaps it is possible to work around them.

> How would you recommend we approach this? 

Web-based? Tcl/Tk? :)

Well... this isn't that bad: your application would output all relevant
data, so to say, you'll continue using your textinterface.

Then you'll need a parser which pipes this stuff to a natively supported
GUI. This could be even a GTK-approach in C or Tcl/Tk via perl.


-- 
mail: adi@thur.de  	http://adi.thur.de	PGP: v2-key via keyserver

Der Tod der reicht dir bald die Hand rauchst du Peter Stuyvesant.

Re: Ada GUI for Windows and Linux

[Toshitaka Kumano]

Are you sure that there is "ObjectAda for Linux" ?

"Frank J. Lhota" wrote:
(snip)
> Currently, we are using the ObjectAda compiler. 
(snip)
> for our client has also expressed an interest in porting this program to Linux.
> fashion.
(snip)

> so we would have to
> rehost a lot of code to GNAT, as well as requiring that some fellow
> contractors to convert their work to GNAT. It is doable, but painful and
> politically unpopular.

If "Object Ada for Linux" is not available, I consider that you should port
your sources to GNAT (or others support Linux) at first, before considering
GUI, although you think that might be painful.


IMHO, you are *happy* because your sources does not include GUI now.
If you change compiler sooner or later, do it *now*, not after you
add GUI.

GUI might add more dependency upon compiler or OS to your sources,
as you understand.

-- 
Toshitaka Kumano
Kamakura, Japan

Re: Ada GUI for Windows and Linux

[Randy Brukardt]

Frank J. Lhota wrote in message ...
>...
>The Claw library provides a clean interface to the windows GUI
facilities,
>and is available for all the NT-based compilers, including ObjectAda.
To my
>knowledge, however, there is no Linux port of Claw, and without such a
port,
>this will not help us make the transition to Linux.
>...
>How would you recommend we approach this? Is there a Linux port of
Claw?

Not currently. We've thought about this some, but it isn't clear what
GUI toolkit to target, and it isn't clear whether the Windows-centric
interface of Claw can be reproduced on Linux.

One solution that would work is to run the application under a Windows
emulator on Linux, such as Wine. I believe that Tom Moran tested several
Claw applications on Wine on his Linux box, and they all worked
appropriately. Then you could use the standard Claw on Linux. Of course,
that doesn't work if you need access to native Linux functions not
supported in Win32.

            Randy Brukardt
            R.R. Software, Inc.

Re: Ada GUI for Windows and Linux

[Ted Dennison]

Frank J. Lhota wrote:
> We need to be careful as to how to approach this, however, for our client
> has also expressed an interest in porting this program to Linux. It would
> therefore be foolish to implement the GUI stuff in a highly Win32-specific
> fashion.
...
> The GtkAda library does provide a GUI interface for both Windows and Linux,
> and would allow us to code the GUI for both OS's. The only problem is that
> AFAIK there is not an ObjectAda version of GtkAda, so we would have to
> rehost a lot of code to GNAT, as well as requiring that some fellow

It might be much easier to rehost GtkAda to ObjectAda (or at least the 
functions in GtkAda that you need). That's certianly the approach I'd 
look at first, were it me.

> The XML / GUI solution sounds great, but we need a solution that exists now.

If that looks great to you, then you may want to consider embedding 
Gekko into your app. If you can do that successfully, you should be able 
to develop the GUI in XUL 
(http://www.mozilla.org/catalog/architecture/xul/ ), and it will be 
portable to any OS that Mozilla supports. Another good site to visit to 
look at this stuff is http://www.xulplanet.com

Re: Ada GUI for Windows and Linux

[David C. Hoos]

I'm somewhat surprised that (apparently) no one has suggested RAPID,
a tcl/tk-based GUI-constructing system, developet by Dr. Matin Calisle,
et al., at the Air Force Academy.  Here is a link:
ftp://ftp.usafa.af.mil/pub/dfcs/carlisle/usafa/rapid/index.html
----- Original Message -----
From: "Frank J. Lhota" <NOSPAM.lhota.adarose@verizon.net>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
To: <comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org>
Sent: Wednesday, September 11, 2002 11:48 AM
Subject: Ada GUI for Windows and Linux


> My company is doing maintenance work on a very large Ada program that has
> been ported to NT. Currently, we are using the ObjectAda compiler. Our
> client is very interested in adding a GUI to this program. This could be
> done a number of ways. A thin binding for Win32 comes with ObjectAda
> (win32ada). R&R (the JanusAda people) provide a thicker binding (Claw) to
> the Win32 API.
>
> We need to be careful as to how to approach this, however, for our client
> has also expressed an interest in porting this program to Linux. It would
> therefore be foolish to implement the GUI stuff in a highly Win32-specific
> fashion.
>
> The Claw library provides a clean interface to the windows GUI facilities,
> and is available for all the NT-based compilers, including ObjectAda. To
my
> knowledge, however, there is no Linux port of Claw, and without such a
port,
> this will not help us make the transition to Linux.
>
> The GtkAda library does provide a GUI interface for both Windows and
Linux,
> and would allow us to code the GUI for both OS's. The only problem is that
> AFAIK there is not an ObjectAda version of GtkAda, so we would have to
> rehost a lot of code to GNAT, as well as requiring that some fellow
> contractors to convert their work to GNAT. It is doable, but painful and
> politically unpopular.
>
> The XML / GUI solution sounds great, but we need a solution that exists
now.
>
> How would you recommend we approach this? Is there a Linux port of Claw?
An
> ObjectAda version of GtkAda? Or is there some other solution that would
> allow us to add a GUI to the windows version of this program that could
> easily moved to Linux?
>
> Thanks in advance for any help you could provide in this matter.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> comp.lang.ada mailing list
> comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org
> http://ada.eu.org/mailman/listinfo/comp.lang.ada
>

Re: Ada GUI for Windows and Linux

[Eric Merritt]

> 
> I mentioned XUL because the article said that it was
> becoming popular.
> It seems to me that Ada gains if it can talk to the
> same API's that
> other languages talk to, and that Ada gains if
> language-neutral API's
> succeed.  

 I like the idea of XUL but its not really that
popular ourside of the mozilla community. I personally
find it a bit cludgy, but it works. I guess if I was
looking to do something like this I would probably
turn something like xwt (www.xwt.org). Its a gui
toolkit that interfaces with any xml-rpc server
(although I am not sure if there is an xml-rpc server
for Ada). If the xforms spec ever gets off the ground
that would be pretty sweet as well.


> Creating an application with AWS does present some
> challenges compared
> to doing it with typical RAD/GUI development.  If
> the user's progress
> through the UI is possibly lengthy and flexible, two
> UI questions are
> problematic (at least for me)  (1) What happens if
> the user hits
> the 'Back' button? (if you've got session info, you
> will want unlimited
> undo support to roll it back) 

 This is more or less way to complicated. If you force
refresh and handle each request atomically you can
pretty much ignore the back button. I think most
people realize that back the back button and an 'undo'
feature are two completly diffrent things. 

> and (2) What happens
> if the user hits the 
> 'Open in New Window' button? (how to fork a session?
>  The 'New Window' 
> in IE also duplicates the current page).

 Most browsers will duplicate the page. Once again if
you handle requests atomically this shouldn't matter.
All you should really keep in the session is user
identity information, and perhaps some globally
usefull information as it arises. If you do otherwise
it will end up biting you in the but. Of course, you
pay for this in increased data accesses.


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