Simple UNIX graphics library suitable for student projects?

[Marc Rochkind]

Does anyone know of a simple graphics package that college students might
use for a project? It should have these attributes:

1. Free and easily installed.
2. Runs on systems students are likely to use, such as Linux, FreeBSD, and
Darwin.
3. Can be learned in a few hours, and won't overburden the graduate
assistants with debugging. (Rules out X.) It will be used for homework
projects--not for building commercial software. The purpose of the course
isn't the graphics package, which will be used for only a few assignments.
It's more of a UNIX systems-level programming course.
4. Has basic drawing primitives, some font stuff, and basic windows. Window
management isn't important.
5. Graphical editor (IDE) is not important.
6. Usable from C or C++.

(Java, Smalltalk, and Python all have suitable systems more or less built-
in. Is there anything similar for C or C++?)

My immediate situation is this: I want to put some exercises in a book I'm
completing that ask the student to program a simple Web browser.

Is there anything lightweight out there, or has X pretty much driven
everything else away?

With Google, I came across SDL. Anyone familiar with it, or things similar?

--Marc

[Rich Teer]

On Thu, 24 Jul 2003, Marc Rochkind wrote:

> Does anyone know of a simple graphics package that college students might
> use for a project? It should have these attributes:

I take it that curses would be too simple (in the lack of
features sense)? :-)

--
Rich Teer, SCNA, SCSA

President,
Rite Online Inc.

Voice: +1 (250) 979-1638
URL: [url]http://www.rite-online.net[/url]

[bob holder]

"Marc Rochkind" <rochkind@basepath.com> wrote in message
news:oprstupbfxojfyi9@den.news.speakeasy.net...

> Does anyone know of a simple graphics package that college students might
> use for a project? It should have these attributes:
>
> 1. Free and easily installed.
> 2. Runs on systems students are likely to use, such as Linux, FreeBSD, and
> Darwin.
> 3. Can be learned in a few hours, and won't overburden the graduate
> assistants with debugging. (Rules out X.) It will be used for homework
> projects--not for building commercial software. The purpose of the course
> isn't the graphics package, which will be used for only a few assignments.
> It's more of a UNIX systems-level programming course.
> 4. Has basic drawing primitives, some font stuff, and basic windows.

Window

> management isn't important.
> 5. Graphical editor (IDE) is not important.
> 6. Usable from C or C++.
>
> (Java, Smalltalk, and Python all have suitable systems more or less built-
> in. Is there anything similar for C or C++?)
>
> My immediate situation is this: I want to put some exercises in a book I'm
> completing that ask the student to program a simple Web browser.
>
> Is there anything lightweight out there, or has X pretty much driven
> everything else away?
>
> With Google, I came across SDL. Anyone familiar with it, or things

similar?

>
> --Marc

Take a look at Qt.

[Bjorn Reese]

Marc Rochkind wrote:

>
> Does anyone know of a simple graphics package that college students might
> use for a project? It should have these attributes:

I do not know which are simple and which are not, but you can find a
list of candidates at:

[url]http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Vista/7184/guitool.html[/url]

[Andre Majorel]

In article <oprstupbfxojfyi9@den.news.speakeasy.net>, Marc Rochkind wrote:

> Does anyone know of a simple graphics package that college students
> might use for a project? It should have these attributes:
>
> 1. Free and easily installed.
> 2. Runs on systems students are likely to use, such as Linux, FreeBSD,
> and Darwin.
> 3. Can be learned in a few hours, and won't overburden the graduate
> assistants with debugging. (Rules out X.)

By X do you mean Xlib or really X11 ?

> It will be used for homework
> projects--not for building commercial software. The purpose of the
> course isn't the graphics package, which will be used for only a few
> assignments. It's more of a UNIX systems-level programming course.
> 4. Has basic drawing primitives, some font stuff, and basic windows.
> Window management isn't important.
> 5. Graphical editor (IDE) is not important.
> 6. Usable from C or C++.
>
> (Java, Smalltalk, and Python all have suitable systems more or less
> built- in. Is there anything similar for C or C++?)
>
> My immediate situation is this: I want to put some exercises in a book
> I'm completing that ask the student to program a simple Web browser.
>
> Is there anything lightweight out there, or has X pretty much driven
> everything else away?
>
> With Google, I came across SDL. Anyone familiar with it, or things
> similar?

I guess SDL is what you're looking for. It works more or less at
the same level as Xlib (i.e. no widgets, plain bitmap graphics),
but it's portable to Windows and other platforms. From my very
limited experience with it, it appears to be quite a bit simpler
than Xlib.

On Linux, I think it can display in an X window or directly onto
the frame buffer (Svgalib).

--
André Majorel <URL:http://www.teaser.fr/~amajorel/>
If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we
despise, we don't believe in it at all. -- Noam Chomsky

[Marc Rochkind]

On Fri, 25 Jul 2003 01:19:21 +0000 (UTC), Andre Majorel
<amajorel@teezer.fr> wrote:

[snip]

>
> By X do you mean Xlib or really X11 ?

I meant two things:
1. Student should not have to program at the Xlib level, or on any toolkit
that uses the intrinsics (e.g., Motif), and
2. Ideally, X shouldn't be there at all, although on UNIX nearly every GUI
system I've seen (SDL being an exception) runs on top of X.


[snip]

>
> I guess SDL is what you're looking for. It works more or less at
> the same level as Xlib (i.e. no widgets, plain bitmap graphics),
> but it's portable to Windows and other platforms. From my very
> limited experience with it, it appears to be quite a bit simpler
> than Xlib.
>
> On Linux, I think it can display in an X window or directly onto
> the frame buffer (Svgalib).
>

Thanks for the info! I will check it out some more.

--Marc

[Derek Millar]

Marc Rochkind <rochkind@basepath.com> writes:

> Does anyone know of a simple graphics package that college students
> might use for a project? It should have these attributes:
>
> 1. Free and easily installed.
> 2. Runs on systems students are likely to use, such as Linux, FreeBSD,
> 3. Can be learned in a few hours, and won't overburden the graduate
> 4. Has basic drawing primitives, some font stuff, and basic
> 5. Graphical editor (IDE) is not important.
> 6. Usable from C or C++.
>

Tk ? [url]http://www.tcl.tk[/url]

It's most usable only slightly indirectly from C and C++, but it's
certainly doable. Meets your other criteria handily. Doesn't replace
X, but doesn't require any knowledge of it, either. Has the additional
advantage that it's the same toolkit most often used in Perl and Python,
so learning it will most likely be useful after the course is over, even
if the students don't use Tcl.


Derek

[Marc Rochkind]

On Fri, 25 Jul 2003 05:38:52 GMT, Derek Millar <derek_millar@yahoo.com>
wrote:

[snip]

>
> Tk ? [url]http://www.tcl.tk[/url]
>
> It's most usable only slightly indirectly from C and C++, but it's
> certainly doable. Meets your other criteria handily. Doesn't replace
> X, but doesn't require any knowledge of it, either. Has the additional
> advantage that it's the same toolkit most often used in Perl and Python,
> so learning it will most likely be useful after the course is over, even
> if the students don't use Tcl.
>
>
> Derek
>

Yes, this is promising, and you're right about the side benefits. I need to
look at what calling it from C looks like.

Also, it's likely that the prof. and the grad assistants are already
familiar with tcl/tk.

Other candidates and Qt and FLTK. I'm looking at FLTK now.

--Marc

[Ralf Fassel]

* Marc Rochkind <rochkind@basepath.com>
| Does anyone know of a simple graphics package that college students
| might use for a project?

[url]http://plplot.sourceforge.net/index.html[/url]

Introduction

PLplot is a library of functions that are useful for making scientific
plots. PLplot can be used from within compiled languages such as C,
C++, FORTRAN and Java, and interactively from interpreted languages
such as Octave, Python, Perl and Tcl. The PLplot library can be used
to create standard x-y plots, semilog plots, log-log plots, contour
plots, 3D surface plots, mesh plots, bar charts and pie
charts. ...

I've used it very long ago, but it seems still active.

R'

[Greg P.]

"Marc Rochkind" wrote:

> Does anyone know of a simple graphics package that college students might
> use for a project? It should have these attributes:

<My immediate situation is this: I want to put some exercises in a book I'm
completing that ask the student to program a simple Web browser.
<snip>

SDL is extremely simple, I use it for all my (well most) linux games. Notice
the word games, libsdl is more of a subsitute for directx (which is does
well at) rather than a windowing API. You have no text boxes, buttons,
window management (minus a few things like putting a caption on your
window).

I recommend wxwindows ([url]www.wxwindows.org[/url]). Qt ([url]http://www.trolltech.com[/url]) is
fine too, but...it is not as simple to work with. Have you decided on which
API you will use for the HTTP functionality?

--
Regards,
Greg P.

Golden Rule of Open Source Programming:
"Don't whine about something unless you plan to implement it yourself"

[Marc Rochkind]

On Sat, 26 Jul 2003 01:09:16 GMT, Greg P. <no@spam.sam> wrote:

> "Marc Rochkind" wrote:

>> Does anyone know of a simple graphics package that college students
>> might
>> use for a project? It should have these attributes:

> <My immediate situation is this: I want to put some exercises in a book
> I'm
> completing that ask the student to program a simple Web browser.
> <snip>
>
> SDL is extremely simple, I use it for all my (well most) linux games.
> Notice
> the word games, libsdl is more of a subsitute for directx (which is does
> well at) rather than a windowing API. You have no text boxes, buttons,
> window management (minus a few things like putting a caption on your
> window).
>

Yes... I gathered that from their web site, so it isn't suitable.

> I recommend wxwindows ([url]www.wxwindows.org[/url]). Qt ([url]http://www.trolltech.com[/url])
> is
> fine too, but...it is not as simple to work with.

I picked Qt, because it is usually distributed with Linux, it's well
documented with several books, and it's used both for Open Source work and
commercial work.

> Have you decided on which
> API you will use for the HTTP functionality?
>

Not sure what you mean... my book is about UNIX systems programming, so we
do the networking at the POSIX/SUS level. And, parsing the HTML is the
whole point of the exercise!

--Marc

[apm]

Marc Rochkind <rochkind@basepath.com> wrote in message news:<oprstymbcgojfyi9@den.news.speakeasy.net>...

> On Thu, 24 Jul 2003 19:07:22 GMT, Rich Teer <rich.teer@rite-group.com>
> wrote:

> > On Thu, 24 Jul 2003, Marc Rochkind wrote

> >> Does anyone know of a simple graphics package that college students
> >> might
> >> use for a project? It should have these attributes:

> > I take it that curses would be too simple (in the lack of
> > features sense)? :-)
> >

> No, actually Curses meet all the objectives, and I use it in some examples.
> But, it's not graphical. I want something that supports a pixel display.
>

My first thought was curses but if you want graphical how about fltk
(pronounced full-tick)? See [url]http://www.fltk.org/[/url] for details.

IMO fltk is not suitable for production programs because there are
certain features missing, but then it is supposed to be lightweight.
It is fast, light and easy though and most people should be able to
pick it up in a few hours.

-Andrew Marlow

[Marc Rochkind]

On 27 Jul 2003 02:31:24 -0700, apm <apm35@student.open.ac.uk> wrote:

> Marc Rochkind <rochkind@basepath.com> wrote in message
> news:<oprstymbcgojfyi9@den.news.speakeasy.net>...

>> On Thu, 24 Jul 2003 19:07:22 GMT, Rich Teer <rich.teer@rite-group.com>
>> wrote:

>> > On Thu, 24 Jul 2003, Marc Rochkind wrote
>> >> Does anyone know of a simple graphics package that college students
>> >> might
>> >> use for a project? It should have these attributes:
>> > I take it that curses would be too simple (in the lack of
>> > features sense)? :-)
>> > No, actually Curses meet all the objectives, and I use it in some

>> examples. But, it's not graphical. I want something that supports a
>> pixel display.
>>

> My first thought was curses but if you want graphical how about fltk
> (pronounced full-tick)? See [url]http://www.fltk.org/[/url] for details.
>
> IMO fltk is not suitable for production programs because there are
> certain features missing, but then it is supposed to be lightweight.
> It is fast, light and easy though and most people should be able to
> pick it up in a few hours.
>
> -Andrew Marlow
>

I looked long and hard at FLTK, and there's a lot to like about it. But, my
feeling is that as long as I'm requiring coding in C++ (as opposed to C)
and as long as it's going to run on top of X, I might as well use Qt which
is more popular and shipped with most version of Linux that include KDE.
(Which is all the majors.) I think it's more likely that the student and
the staff will have other uses for what they have learned about Qt.

--Marc

[Greg P.]

"Marc Rochkind" <rochkind@basepath.com> wrote in message
news:oprswldfe1ojfyi9@den.news.speakeasy.net...

> I picked Qt, because it is usually distributed with Linux, it's well
> documented with several books, and it's used both for Open Source work and
> commercial work.

You will be pleased with your decision.

> Not sure what you mean... my book is about UNIX systems programming, so we
> do the networking at the POSIX/SUS level. And, parsing the HTML is the
> whole point of the exercise!

Good for you for not taking up some 3rd party HTTP routine. I hope it all
works out for you! =)

[Dmitry Karasik]

Hi Marc!

On 24 Jul 03 at 20:23, "Marc" (Marc Rochkind) wrote:

Marc> Does anyone know of a simple graphics package that college students
Marc> might use for a project?

You can also check GTK. I never used it, but no one mentioned it here,
and I know it's for C. And yes, Xaw and Motif also.

--
Sincerely,
Dmitry

--- [url]www.karasik.eu.org[/url] ---

Life ain't fair, but the root password helps.
- BOFH

[Nils Petter Vaskinn]

On Thu, 24 Jul 2003 12:23:25 -0600, Marc Rochkind wrote:

> Does anyone know of a simple graphics package that college students might
> use for a project? It should have these attributes:

QT/X11

>
> 1. Free and easily installed.

Commercial or free (gpl / gpl like) lisence
Check.

> 2. Runs on systems students are likely to use, such as Linux, FreeBSD, and
> Darwin.

linux,other nixes, OS X, windows
Check.

> 3. Can be learned in a few hours, and won't overburden the graduate
> assistants with debugging. (Rules out X.) It will be used for homework
> projects--not for building commercial software. The purpose of the course
> isn't the graphics package, which will be used for only a few assignments.
> It's more of a UNIX systems-level programming course.

Relatively easy, once you understand it.
Check.

If it's system level programming why confuse things with graphical
frontends.

> 4. Has basic drawing primitives, some font stuff, and basic windows. Window
> management isn't important.

Check

> 5. Graphical editor (IDE) is not important.

Your favorite text editor.

> 6. Usable from C or C++.

C++
Check

C? Don't know, don't really think so.

[url]http://www.trolltech.com/products/qt/index.html[/url]


hth
NPV

[apm]

Marc Rochkind <rochkind@basepath.com> wrote in message news:<oprszvxxdrojfyi9@den.news.speakeasy.net>...

> On 27 Jul 2003 02:31:24 -0700, apm <apm35@student.open.ac.uk> wrote:

> > My first thought was curses but if you want graphical how about fltk
> > (pronounced full-tick)? See [url]http://www.fltk.org/[/url] for details.

[snip]

> I looked long and hard at FLTK, and there's a lot to like about it. But,

[ reasons snipped ]

> I might as well use Qt which is more popular

Depends who you ask. Lots of people don't like the MOC.

-Andrew Marlow