Re: Newbie Needs Ada Advice

[Ali Bendriss <Bendriss@drc.ion.ucl.ac.uk>]

Hello,

On Tuesday 08 May 2007 16:27, ezkcdude wrote:
> Thanks, Pascal. Here are my responses.
>
> > I don't understand that, did you really had a look at GtkAda (some have
> > commented that they don't like it, fine) ?
>
> Dmitry and others commented on this in this thread.
>
> >GPS is developed with it,
> > looks like GtkAda is quite capable...
>
> It's not so much look, but the ease of doing it. For example, I would
> like something like the GUI builders you can find in NetBeans. Glade
> is similar, but then you have the XML stuff, which seems like even
> more overhead to learn. I noticed that the version of glade bundled
> with GtkAda in GPS is not the most current version. The current
> version of Glade does not output source code, only XML.
>
You usually don't have to edit that xml file directly, Glade/Gate will do the 
job for you.

> > Another solution for Ada is to use
> > AWS, the Ada application can then be accessed with a standard browser.
> > This of course impose that the GUI be not too "fancy", yet with the
> > AWS/Ajax support there is still some nice GUI to build.
>
> I really don't want to get into web programming. That would be even
> more languages to learn.
>
a web browser has some great graphics capabilities, just send your image in a 
format it can understand (png, jpeg, gif, svg). It will as well save you some 
time by implementing natively encryption, printing, fonts,history...  

> > Everything is possible :) Java GUI are so ugly that I won't even
> > consider this a solution. At least GtkAda as native look&feel (not 100%
> > ok but far better than Java).
>
> I am not really concerned with looks. Most important are 1)
> functionality 2) performance and 3) ease of programming. Java really
> seems to have the upper hand in #3. Is this not the case?
>
Java is able as well to run as an applet and some GUI using the multithreading  
are really responsive. But we are in c.l.ada isn't it so : 

Maybe the best tools to start writing a GUI are pens, scissors and some 
papers. After you will have the choice of  different libs as mentioned before 
to implement it. I will just add :
- TASH  http://tcladashell.sourceforge.net/
- AdaSDL http://www.libsdl.org/languages.php

I've already used the second, and it's fine to manage simple events.

You need as well to think how your engine and your GUI will communicate.

-- 
Ali