Re: Patches to vte accepted

[John Swensen]

John W. Eaton wrote:
> On 25-Apr-2006, John Swensen wrote:
>
> | I got the patches suggested by jwe (and others previously) fixed up and
> | accepted by the libvte maintainers.  They are included in version
> | 0.13. 
>
> That's good news.  Thanks for following up on this.
>
> | I have made slow, but steady progress on my UI and it should be ready
> | for a release soon.  You can see a new screenshot at
> | 
> | http://swenmac.homeip.net:8080/oui.png
>
> What are you doing about threading issues?
>
> It looks like there is already a Python interface. Would it be
> possible to make this widget scriptable from Octave as well?  If so,
> and given Muthu's gtk bindings for Octave, then it seems to me that it
> should be possible to write an IDE for Octave in Octave's own
> scripting language.  Granted, it would be fairly tightly bound to gtk
> and systems that have threads and ptys, but that covers most systems
> these days, just not that pesky oddball thing that comes from Redmond,
> WA.
>
> jwe
>
>
>   
For threading issues, I am relying on a patch to Octave. Once I am sure
it is rock solid, I will submit it. Basically, I have inserted a
callback at the following locations:

  1) src/toplev.cc - In the main_loop() function, just before the end of the 
while{} loop.
  2) src/pt-bp.h - In the MAYBE_DO_BREAKPOINT macro, just before the call to 
do_keyboard() (which prompts for the next db* command)
At these points, if the callback is turned on, a bunch of data is pushed
into a semaphore protected singleton class.  The IDE is then able to
retrieve this data whenever the semaphore is available.
 
As to "being bound to gtk and systems with threads and ptys", this is also 
dependent on gnome for the file dialog.  I have now compiled this for Cygwin/X, 
OSX, and Linux and it appears to be working fine.  I guess I personally am 
kindof against making the IDE scripted from within Octave, mostly because as I 
have worked on  this I have had to deal with some headaches of making sure it 
will compile on all the platforms.  By adding another layer of Octave/UI 
toolkit interoperability, it is just another package that has to be worked out 
to get this thing working on all platforms.
 
-John