Re: [Chicken-users] cross-platform gui toolkit

[felix winkelmann]

On 2/6/07, Matthew Welland <address@hidden> wrote:
> Is FLTK flakey? I admit I haven't used it a heck of a lot but I've never
> noticed it being flakey. I have an agenda PDA and fltk was very responsive
> on it and it seemed quite reliable. In fact my much faster h2200 with Opie
> seems quite sluggish in comparison but I haven't done a side by side
> comparison.

Well, the documentation has a few holes, but I've used FLTK successfully
most of the time. There are simply some quirky things (like setting the
window-title before showing it the first time, etc) that can be surprising.
Still, its the only toolkit that tries to keep the dependencies and binary
sizes small. I like FLTK and the API is quite sane. It's just quirky,
and sometimes a bit different. I'm used to Qt which is a monstrosity, but
well documented and very robust.

What all these toolkits share is a very static model of programming, which
is a pity. Qt4 has improved support for dynamic widget manipulation, but,
boy, it's fat.

> In chicken bb + opengl seemed to work pretty well but a "canvas" equivalent
> opengl is not. How about bb + cairo + opengl as a starting foundation? I
> really like the idea of building as much as possible in scheme. I'd suggest
> going one step further and striving to keep the scheme portion not too
> chicken specific. Other schemes would only have to provide the interface
> layer and the bulk of the code could be reused.
>
> Phase 1:
>
> | bb | + | cairo | + | opengl |
> -----------------------------------
> schemish interface layer
> -----------------------------------
> scheme programs
>
> Phase 2:
> Add alternatives to the bb/cairo/opengl layer
> gtk/qt/wxwidgets etc.

A good idea. Unfortunately I found cairo a bit hard to grasp. It seems
to have many dependencies and documentation is a bit sparse.

> R E S U L T S   F R O M   M Y   A U T O M A T E D   B U I L D
> ============================================
> automake: configure.in: AC_ARG_PROGRAM must be used in `configure.in'
> automake: Makefile.am: warning: automake does not support EXTRA_DIST being
> defined conditionally
> automake: Makefile.am: warning: automake does not support SUFFIXES being
> defined conditionally
> Makefile.am:211: invalid unused variable name: `chicken_static_LDFLAGS'
> Makefile.am:209: invalid unused variable name: `chicken_static_SOURCES'
> Makefile.am:219: invalid unused variable name: `csi_static_LDFLAGS'
> Makefile.am:217: invalid unused variable name: `csi_static_SOURCES'
> Makefile.am:210: invalid unused variable name: `chicken_static_LDADD'
> Makefile.am:218: invalid unused variable name: `csi_static_LDADD'
> + autoconf
> configure.in:9: error: possibly undefined macro: AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE
>       If this token and others are legitimate, please use m4_pattern_allow.
>       See the Autoconf documentation.
> configure.in:46: error: possibly undefined macro: AC_LIBTOOL_WIN32_DLL
> configure.in:47: error: possibly undefined macro: AM_PROG_LIBTOOL
> configure.in:100: error: possibly undefined macro: AM_CONDITIONAL
> ./configure --prefix=/home/matt/chicken-test/localtestauto
> ./configure: line 1332: syntax error near unexpected token `1.8.3'
> ./configure: line 1332: `AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE(1.8.3)'
> make BOOTSTRAP_PATH=/usr/local/bin
> make: *** No targets specified and no makefile found.  Stop.
> make install
> make: *** No rule to make target `install'.  Stop.
> CMake Error: This project requires version 2.4.5 of CMake.  You are running
> version 2.4.3.

Like Mario said, something's weird with your autotools setup, I'd say. What
commands are running here?


cheers,
felix