Re: GUI work (was: Graphical help browser)

[Pedro L. Lucas]

Hi, I'm developer of QtOctave. I would rather a new API to connect
Octave with IDEs. This API should open pipes from Octave to IDE and
from IDE to Octave. You could send commands to Octave and read results
from those pipes. This pipes should be different of stdin and stdout
used by user. Then IDE could send, for example, commands to read some
matrix or read help from some command.

I have read code of Octave and I think it could be written easyly. It
doesn't need any thread or fork, only pipes.

Every-IDE should use this API. Then you could use Emacs, OctaveDE or
whatever you want. This API would be "multi-platform", it can be used
in Windows or UNIX.

Kind regards.


2009/1/22, John W. Eaton <address@hidden>:
> On 25-Nov-2008, Michael Goffioul wrote:
>
> | On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 7:56 PM, John W. Eaton <address@hidden>
> wrote:
> | > On 25-Nov-2008, John Swensen wrote:
> | >
> | > | You can definitely use any editor you want, and if there was some way
> | > | to put emacs into the IDE I would do it, but that just simply isn't
> | > | possible.
> | >
> | > In the NEWS file from the current Emacs development sources, I see:
> | >
> | >  * Changes in Emacs 23.1
> | >
> | >  ** Improved X Window System support
> | >
> | >  [...]
> | >
> | >  *** Emacs now supports the XEmbed specification.
> | >  You can embed Emacs in another application on X11.  The new command
> line
> | >  option --parent-id is used to pass the parent window id to Emacs.  See
> | >  http://standards.freedesktop.org/xembed-spec/xembed-spec-latest.html
> | >  for details about XEmbed.
> | >
> | >  [...]
> | >
> | > Would that be sufficient to allow you to embed Emacs in a gtk
> | > application?
> |
> | You already know my opinion about this. While Windows support is not
> | a target or a focus, I still think you should "consider" them when making
> | architecture decision. Whether you like or not, Windows is the most
> | widely used OS around the world. If you want to increase your user base,
> | considering Windows as a possible platform is a win-win kind of thing.
> |
> | Using a X11 solution for building an IDE for octave would de facto rule
> | out Windows (non-cygwin) as supported platform. I know you don't care
> | and I respect your opinion. But I personally think there are maybe better
> | trade-offs.
>
> I did not mean to suggest that embedding Emacs as the editor in an
> Octave IDE would be the only way to go.  I see no reason to make it
> overly difficult to write a useful IDE for Windows, just as I see no
> reason to prevent doing things like embedding Emacs.  Can't we allow
> both?  I don't necessarily object to having a default editor built
> from some widget set.  But we should not force that on all users.  If
> Emacs can be embedded, then I think we should allow users to replace
> the default editor with Emacs.  If that solution doesn't work on
> Windows systems today, then maybe someone will extend Emacs so that it
> can work in the future.
>
> jwe
>