Need some addition in Ruby/Tk

[Sabyasachi Mustafi]

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Hello all,=0A Our software is expected to be installed in this month. Af=
ter two months of extensive use of Ruby/Tk I have something to say about it=
. I think to make real life applications quickly we need more in the area o=
f Ruby/Tk as in the following.=0A=0A1. Tkcombobox should be added in the Ru=
by Distribution.=0A2. Both of the List box and combo box should have the op=
tion to provide two values as in Visual Basic (Bound Column)=0A3. Need some=
thing like Grid. I think there is TkTable but I am not sure about it.=0A=0A=
I have used 1.6 version. May be in 1.8 the problems are solved. What is=
your opinion?=0A=0AWith Regards,=0ASabyasachi Mustafi
--Next_1068276139---0-203.199.83.28-9851--

[Ferenc Engard]

Hello,

Sabyasachi Mustafi wrote:

>
> Hello all,
> Our software is expected to be installed in this month. After two months of extensive use of Ruby/Tk I have something to say about it I think to make real life applications quickly we need more in the area of Ruby/Tk as in the following.
>
> 1. Tkcombobox should be added in the Ruby Distribution.

Actually, combobox should be added to Tk. :-( There is at least five
combobox implementations, none of which are part of the core (Tcl/)Tk
distribution. I use (strictly for prototyping, later I will replace it)
TixComboBox.

> 2. Both of the List box and combo box should have the option to provide two values as in Visual Basic (Bound Column)

You can extend the widgets easily with addPair(), selectId(), text2id(),
currentId() functions, which simply manipulate a hash.

> 3. Need something like Grid. I think there is TkTable but I am not sure about it.

Yes, there is, and TkTable is great! I have written a wrapper to it, but
didn't released it yet. You can download it from here:

[url]http://www.korus.hu/~fery/ruby/tktable.rb[/url]

In my opinion, the bare Tk without any extensions is a bit featureless
(no keyboard shortcuts, missing key widgets (combobox, grid etc.),
lacking framework for writing custom widgets...). If you use it from
tcl, it is compensated by the lots of widget and other libraries which
is available for tk. Unfortunately, if you use Tk from ruby, it is much
more harder to use these libs. Also, there are problems with the ruby/tk
implementation itself (e.g. callback and exceptions, maybe corrected in
CVS). If I could restart my (mainly GUI-oriented, database handling)
project, I think I would choose another GUI lib (or, shame, another
language). :-/

Regards,
Ferenc

[Hidetoshi NAGAI]

Hi,

From: "Sabyasachi Mustafi" <sabymus@rediffmail.com>
Subject: Need some addition in Ruby/Tk
Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 16:24:55 +0900
Message-ID: <20031108072219.9857.qmail@webmail18.rediffmail.co m>

> 1. Tkcombobox should be added in the Ruby Distribution.

Which one do you talk about? There are some kinds of Ruby/Tk samples
and Tcl/Tk extensions.

> 2. Both of the List box and combo box should have the option to
> provide two values as in Visual Basic (Bound Column)

I'm sorry but I'm not a Visual Basic user. Please show me a sample
code (and its effects) that you are imaging.

> 3. Need something like Grid. I think there is TkTable but I am not
> sure about it.

Ruby/Tk depends on Tcl/Tk libraries linked to the tcltklib extension.
Do you say that Tcl/Tk's grid geometry manager is not enough?
If so, you'll have to create a wrapper of Tcl/Tk's geometry managers.
Or you can try to use Tcl/Tk extensions (e.g. TkTable) on Ruby/Tk.
--
Hidetoshi NAGAI (nagai@ai.kyutech.ac.jp)

[Nikolay Ponomarenko]

Hello Hidetoshi,
Monday, November 10, 2003, 5:01:23 AM, you wrote:

>> 1. Tkcombobox should be added in the Ruby Distribution.

HN> Which one do you talk about? There are some kinds of Ruby/Tk samples
HN> and Tcl/Tk extensions.

It'll be nice to use something like
Hugecombo
Hugelist
:)))

>> 3. Need something like Grid. I think there is TkTable but I am not
>> sure about it.

HN> Ruby/Tk depends on Tcl/Tk libraries linked to the tcltklib extension.
HN> Do you say that Tcl/Tk's grid geometry manager is not enough?
HN> If so, you'll have to create a wrapper of Tcl/Tk's geometry managers.
HN> Or you can try to use Tcl/Tk extensions (e.g. TkTable) on Ruby/Tk.

There is an wrapper under TkTable written by
Ferenc Engard <ferenc(at) engard.hu>
May be it can be included into Ruby/Tk distribution ....

--
Best regards,
Nikolay

[Ferenc Engard]

Hello,

Sabyasachi Mustafi wrote:

>
> Hello all,
> Our software is expected to be installed in this month. After two months of extensive use of Ruby/Tk I

have something to say about it I think to make real life applications
quickly we need more in the area of
Ruby/Tk as in the following.

>
> 1. Tkcombobox should be added in the Ruby Distribution.

Actually, combobox should be added to Tk. :-( There is at least five
combobox implementations, none of which are part of the core (Tcl/)Tk
distribution. I use (strictly for prototyping, later I will replace it)
TixComboBox.

> 2. Both of the List box and combo box should have the option to provide two values as in Visual Basic (Bound

Column)

You can extend the widgets easily with addPair(), selectId(), text2id(),
currentId() functions, which simply manipulate a hash.

> 3. Need something like Grid. I think there is TkTable but I am not sure about it.

Yes, there is, and TkTable is great! I have written a wrapper to it, but
didn't released it yet. You can download it from here:

[url]http://www.korus.hu/~fery/ruby/tktable.rb[/url]

In my opinion, the bare Tk without any extensions is a bit featureless
(no keyboard shortcuts, missing key widgets (combobox, grid etc.),
lacking framework for writing custom widgets...). If you use it from
tcl, it is compensated by the lots of widget and other libraries which
is available for tk. Unfortunately, if you use Tk from ruby, it is much
more harder to use these libs. Also, there are problems with the ruby/tk
implementation itself (e.g. callback and exceptions, maybe corrected in
CVS). If I could restart my (mainly GUI-oriented, database handling)
project, I think I would choose another GUI lib (or, shame, another
language). :-/

Anyway, what tk extension library wrappers (e.g., bwidgets?) are
available for ruby?

Regards,
Ferenc

[Hidetoshi NAGAI]

Hi,

From: Ferenc Engard <ferenc@engard.hu>
Subject: Re: Need some addition in Ruby/Tk
Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2003 08:41:00 +0900
Message-ID: <3FB41689.1B1A917E@engard.hu>

> > 1. Tkcombobox should be added in the Ruby Distribution.

> Actually, combobox should be added to Tk. :-( There is at least five
> combobox implementations, none of which are part of the core (Tcl/)Tk
> distribution. I use (strictly for prototyping, later I will replace it)
> TixComboBox.

Why don't you create your Tkcombobox class?
I think it is not so difficult.
You can find following samples on the Web.

[url]http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-list/18167[/url]
[url]http://www-ps.kek.jp/thitoshi/ruby/[/url]

--
Hidetoshi NAGAI (nagai@ai.kyutech.ac.jp)

[Ferenc Engard]

Hidetoshi NAGAI wrote:

>
> Hi,
>
> From: Ferenc Engard <ferenc@engard.hu>
> Subject: Re: Need some addition in Ruby/Tk
> Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2003 08:41:00 +0900
> Message-ID: <3FB41689.1B1A917E@engard.hu>

> > > 1. Tkcombobox should be added in the Ruby Distribution.

> > Actually, combobox should be added to Tk. :-( There is at least five
> > combobox implementations, none of which are part of the core (Tcl/)Tk
> > distribution. I use (strictly for prototyping, later I will replace it)
> > TixComboBox.

>
> Why don't you create your Tkcombobox class?
> I think it is not so difficult.

Well, with proficient look-and-feel and proper bindings (both on
keyboard and mouse) it is not so small work IMHO...

> You can find following samples on the Web.
>
> [url]http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-list/18167[/url]

Megawidgets in ruby...? I didn't try it yet, but sounds good... I have
some questions:

This is from tk.rb:

module TkComposite
include Tk
extend Tk

def initialize(parent=nil, *args)
[...]

What does it mean if a module has an initialize method? E.g.

class A
def initialize
...
end
end

class B < A
include TkComposite
def initialize
...
super # it calls TkComposite#initialize or A#initialize?
end
end

For automatically initializing a module, I wrote my own 'before' hack;
it was unnecessary? (Although, it calls the ascendant's method even if
super is not called...)

I will look about this TkComposite...

Ferenc

[ts]

>>>>> "F" == Ferenc Engard <ferenc@engard.hu> writes:

F> class B < A
F> include TkComposite
F> def initialize
F> ...
F> super # it calls TkComposite#initialize or A#initialize?

TkComposite#initialize


Guy Decoux

[Hidetoshi NAGAI]

Hi,

From: "Sabyasachi Mustafi" <sabymus@rediffmail.com>
Subject: Need some addition in Ruby/Tk
Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 16:24:55 +0900
Message-ID: <20031108072219.9857.qmail@webmail18.rediffmail.co m>

> 1. Tkcombobox should be added in the Ruby Distribution.

I added new 4 sample scripts to CVS.

1. tktextframe.rb : simple text frame with 'scrollbar 0N/OFF' method

2. tkballoonhelp.rb : simple balloon help widget
------<sample of usage>---------------------------------
TkButton.new('text'=>'This button has another balloon help') {|b|
pack('fill'=>'x')
TkBalloonHelp.new(b, 'text'=>'configured message',
'interval'=>500, 'font'=>'courier',
'background'=>'gray', 'foreground'=>'red')
}
--------------------------------------------------------

3. tkmultilistbox.rb : multiple listboxes with pane tabs
------<sample of usage>---------------------------------
f = TkFrame.new(nil, 'width'=>300,
'height'=>200).pack('fill'=>'both', 'expand'=>'true')
l = TkMultiListbox.new(f, 150,
[ ['L1', 100],
['L2', 200],
['L3', 50] ],
'titlefont'=>'courier',
'titleforeground'=>'yellow',
'titlebackground'=>'navy'
).pack('fill'=>'both', 'expand'=>true)
l.insert('end', [1,2,3])
l.insert('end', [4,5,6])
l.insert('end', [4,5,6], [4,5,6])
l.insert('end', ['aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa','bbbbbbbbbbb','ccccccccccccccccc '])
p l.columns(1)
p l.columns(1..3)
p l.columns(1,2)
--------------------------------------------------------

4. tkcombobox.rb : listbox with auto-scroll tab, and combobox widget
------<sample of usage>---------------------------------
v = TkVariable.new
e = TkCombobox.new(:height=>7, :scrollbar=>true, :textvariable=>v,
:startwait=>400, :interval=>200).pack
e.values(%w(aa bb cc dd ee ff gg hh ii jj kk ll mm nn oo pp qq rr ss))
#e.see(e.list_index('end') - 2)
e.value = 'cc'
TkFrame.new{|f|
fnt = TkFont.new('Helvetica 10')
TkLabel.new(f, :font=>fnt,
:text=>'TkCombobox value :').pack(:side=>:left)
TkLabel.new(f, :font=>fnt, :textvariable=>v).pack(:side=>:left)
}.pack

TkFrame.new(:relief=>:raised, :borderwidth=>2,
:height=>3).pack(:fill=>:x, :expand=>true,
:padx=>5, :pady=>3)

l = TkAutoScrollbox.new(nil, :relief=>:groove, :borderwidth=>4,
:width=>20).pack(:fill=>:both, :expand=>true)
(0..20).each{|i| l.insert('end', "line #{i}")}

TkFrame.new(:relief=>:ridge, :borderwidth=>3){
TkButton.new(self, :text=>'ON',
:command=>proc{l.scrollbar(true)}).pack(:side=>:le ft)
TkButton.new(self, :text=>'OFF',
:command=>proc{l.scrollbar(false)}).pack(:side=>:r ight)
pack(:fill=>:x)
}
--------------------------------------------------------

Those will be included in ext/tk/sample/ directory of 1.8.1-preview3.
Welcome to comments and bug reports.
--
Hidetoshi NAGAI (nagai@ai.kyutech.ac.jp)