World: r3wp

I don't mind advanced features at all, but we must be careful not 
to make the GUI difficult to use from the outset or having to place 
the user into a specific mindset, when starting to learn it.

there is VID and there is View.  we must not sacrifice the later 
for the former.

exaclty. I think that VID3.4 is designed in a good way, let's first 
see, if the architecture provides us everything we need ...

to me VID always very easy to use.  making it pretty & dynamic ... 
well that's a bit (a lot ;-) more painfull.

I think it's possible to make it strong for industrial strength applications, 
without making the usability a hindrance. I also wouldn't want to 
lose the ability to write a GUI in 2 minutes for your boss to use.

We all agree on that, but I just want to raise the point that a lot 
of the short commings in view are based on some serious issues in 
VID.

oops... hehe shortcommings in VID are based on those in View... heheh

view is already much more powerfull now, but I feel that the current 
design is like going half way. 


instead of having a totally open level 1 (gfx engine) on which level 
2 (view) and level 3 (VID) is built, we have level 1.5 and level 
3

and I mean within REBOL, not within C.

Most of VID's serious issues come down to event handling (solvable 
now) and incompleteness (also solvable, just a bunch of hard work) 
and missing features, like keyboard navigation (already solved that). 
The VID extension kit makes VID much more scalable, simply by finishing 
the work that Carl set out to do. It's easier to write large apps 
because styles are more uniform, and you have more powerful features 
and adherence to face accessors, rather than relying on face hacking.


Building those features into V3.4 by default, and you have a killer 
UI system without sacrificing usability.

glayout already implements 90% of what we want to build for VID 3.4, 
down to the dynamic layout engine, which is just about the same.

themes are a 2 function addition, and localisation would be a single 
function to add.

It's important to lift the UI out of the domain of appearance and 
into the domain of meaning. When your UI intelligently finds the 
default window close button or the first field in a form automatically, 
and automatically assigns correct keyboard navigation shortcuts, 
because of the underlying architecture's emphasis on meaning, there's 
no need to write any code to handle that at all. It's just there. 
You build your styles to adhere to the meaning that was setup by 
the GUI system. In the VID extension kit, this is done through flags 
and powerful face handling features. You don't need to add any code 
for that in the dialect.

but VID R2 has some very serious platform limits which we can bypass... 
which is nice to be able to have access to in the next implementation 
of R3 View which is outside the core dll.

can=can't

Max - so what do you propose for the kernel, to not be 1.5 and 3, 
but 1, 2, 3? :-)

:-P

it could be 1, 1.5, and 3 also if people like how gobs are currently 
structured. :-)

so what comes into "1"? :-)

gels = graphic elements

We already have message passing, and these messages are events.

So, maybe we need to have the ability to define custom events and 
have custom event handlers.

I was never convinced by Max's liquid thingy as even as the author, 
he was not readily able to cook up anything other than the most simple 
of demos.

As for semantic meaning in styles ... I think that remains to be 
proven

Graham - IIRC, custom generated events were planned since the very 
beginning? But they are not probably implemented/enabled yet .....

Or maybe the docs are just not upto date

I've spent a bit of time going over R3/View and believe it now has 
all the "building blocks" required to build a modern/fast gob! based 
GUI. The amazing thing is that these building blocks are the 10 natives 
that View adds [to Core]. They are:

	gob!
	caret-to-offset
	cursor
	draw
	effect
	map-event
	map-gob-offset
	offset-to-caret
	show
	size-text


With these 10 natives (gob! is actually a type!) we should be able 
to construct simple but powerfull gob!-based GUIs with a smaller 
mezz footprint than R2. My preliminary conversion of RebGUI to R3 
seems to take about 50% the code to do the same thing [compared to 
R2] ... very promising at first glance.


To get a feeling for how tight the code can be the next post is the 
entire [skeleton] source of a working gob!-based GUI.

ctx-rebgui3: make object! [

	cursors: make object! [
		app-start: 32650
		hand: 32649
		help: 32651
		hourglass: 32650
		arrow: 32512
		cross: 32515
		i-shape: 32513
		no: 32648
		size-all: 32646
		size-nesw: 32643
		size-ns: 32645
		size-nwse: 32642
		size-we: 32644
		up-arrow: 32516
		wait: 32514
	]

	colors: make object! [
		page: white
		edit: white
		text: black
		true: leaf
		false: red
		link: blue
		theme: [165.217.246 0.105.207 0.55.155]
		outline: [207.207.207 160.160.160 112.112.112]
	]

	metrics: make object! [
		cell: 4
		gap: cell * 2
		line: cell * 5
		margin: cell * 4
		margin-size: as-pair margin margin
		radius: 2
	]

	;	Private functions

	set 'make-gob make function! [[

  spec [block!] ; offset, size and one or more attribute/value pairs
		/data object
		/local size text gob axis
	][
		size: spec/2
		if any [negative? size/x negative? size/y] [
			text: select spec 'text
			all [block? text text: first find text string!]

   size: 8x4 + size-text make gob! compose [size: 9999x9999 text: (text)]
			all [negative? spec/2/x spec/2/x: size/x]
			all [negative? spec/2/y spec/2/y: size/y]
		]
		gob: copy []
		;	attributes are (text, color, effect, image and draw)
		foreach [attribute value] spec [
			switch attribute [
				box [
					attribute: 'draw
					value: compose [
						pen (get value/1)
						line-width 1
						fill-pen (get value/2)
						box 0x0 (spec/2 - 1x1) (metrics/radius)
					]
				]
				pill [
					attribute: 'draw
					axis: either spec/2/x >= spec/2/y [2] [1]
					value: compose/deep [
						pen (colors/outline/3)
						line-width 1

      grad-pen linear (spec/2/:axis * .1) (spec/2/:axis * .9) (all [axis 
      = 2 90]) [(colors/outline/1) (white) (colors/outline/1)]
						box 0x0 (spec/2 - 1x1) (metrics/radius)
					]
				]
			]
			append gob reduce [attribute value]
		]
		spec: gob

  gob: make gob! compose [offset: spec/1 size: spec/2 (to set-word! 
  spec/3) spec/4 data: (make object! any [object copy []])]
		foreach [attribute value] skip spec 2 [

   append gob make gob! compose [offset: 0x0 size: spec/2 (to set-word! 
   attribute) value]
		]
		gob
	]]

	;	Public functions

	set 'display make function! [[
		title spec

  /local gob xy max-x max-y left-to-right? after-count after-limit 
  here arg append-widget widget last-widget word
		action
		handler
		size
		text
		color
	][
		xy: metrics/margin-size
		max-x: xy/x
		max-y: xy/y
		left-to-right?: true
		after-count: 1
		after-limit: 9999
		
		gob: make gob! compose [text: (title) data: (make object! [])]

		append-widget: make function! [[][
			unless widget [exit]
			unless handler [

    handler: compose/deep [on-down: make function! [[event][(action)]]]
			]
			append gob switch widget [
				bar [

     make-gob compose [(xy) (as-pair max-x - metrics/margin 1) color (colors/outline/3)]
				]
				button [
					all [none? size size: 15x5]

     make-gob/data compose/deep [(xy) (size * metrics/cell) pill none 
     text [center (text)]] handler
				]
				text [
					all [none? size size: 15x5]

     make-gob/data compose/only [(xy) (size * metrics/cell) color (white) 
     text (text)] handler
				]
			]
			last-widget: last gob/pane
			;	1st reverse item?
			unless left-to-right? [

    last-widget/offset/x: last-widget/offset/x - last-widget/size/x
			]
			xy: last-widget/offset
			;	max vertical size
			max-y: max max-y xy/y + last-widget/size/y
			;	horizontal pos adjustments
			all [
				left-to-right?
				xy/x: xy/x + last-widget/size/x
				max-x: max max-x xy/x
			]
			;	after limit reached?
			either after-count < after-limit [
				;	spacing

    xy/x: xy/x + either left-to-right? [metrics/gap] [negate metrics/gap]
				++ after-count
			] [
				xy: as-pair metrics/margin max-y + metrics/gap
				after-count: 1
			]
			all [:word set :word last-widget]
			word: widget: action: handler: size: text: color: none
		]]


  parse reduce/only spec [after bar button handler return reverse rich 
  text] [
			any [
				opt [here: set arg paren! (here/1: do arg) :here] [
					'return (
						append-widget
						xy: as-pair metrics/margin max-y + metrics/gap
						left-to-right?: true
						after-limit: 9999
					)
					| 'reverse (
						append-widget
						xy: as-pair max-x max-y + metrics/gap
						left-to-right?: false
						after-limit: 9999
					)
					| 'after set arg integer! (
						;	return unless this is first widget
						if widget [
							append-widget
							xy: as-pair metrics/margin max-y + metrics/gap
						]
						after-count: 1
						after-limit: arg
					)
					| 'handler set arg block! (handler: arg)
					| 'rich set arg block! (text: arg)
					| [set arg integer! | set arg pair!] (size: arg)
					| set arg string! (text: arg)
					| [set arg tuple! | set arg none!] (color: arg)
					| set arg block! (action: arg)
					| set arg set-word! (append-widget word: :arg)
					| set arg word! (append-widget widget: arg)
				]
			]
		]

		append-widget
		gob/size: metrics/margin-size + as-pair max-x max-y
		gob/offset: system/view/metrics/work-size - gob/size / 2
		append system/view/screen-gob gob
		show system/view/screen-gob
	]]

	set 'undisplay make function! [[gob][
		remove find system/view/screen-gob gob
		show system/view/screen-gob
	]]

	;	Start global GUI event handler

	active-gob: none
	system/view/event-port: open [scheme: 'event]

 system/view/event-port/awake: make function! [[event /local evt gob][
		evt: map-event event
		gob: evt/gob
		while [not object? gob/data] [gob: gob/parent]
		if all [event/type = 'move gob <> active-gob] [
			attempt [active-gob/data/on-away event]
			active-gob: gob
			attempt [active-gob/data/on-over event]
		]
		evt: to word! ajoin ['on- event/type]
		attempt [gob/data/:evt event]
	]]
]

add a closing ']'. An example app is:

blk: copy []
foreach word words-of ctx-rebgui3/cursors [
	append blk compose/deep [
		text (form word) handler [

   on-over: make function! [[event][cursor (ctx-rebgui3/cursors/:word)]]

   on-away: make function! [[event][cursor ctx-rebgui3/cursors/arrow]]
		]
	]
]

display "Test Window" compose [
	text 83x10 rich [size 36 center red "Reb" black "GUI" leaf "3"]
	after 5
	(blk)
	return
	bar
	reverse
	button "Close" [undisplay event/gob]
	button "Open" [
		display "Alert" [
			after 1
			text 50x5 "Some more text."
			bar
			reverse
			button "Close" [undisplay event/gob]
		]
	]
]

why post these examples to r3 chat so that we can try them ...

Even better, I'll upload it as a script to my website. Oh, and the 
above app example is missing an important line at the end:

	wait system/view/event-port

altme right click copy doesn't work for me ...

do http://www.dobeash.com/gui.r

hehe, so we might get RebGUI 3 sooner, than VID3 :-)

Ashley, are you taking it in the same direction as RebGUI?

Yes and no. Yes it's going to be as minimalistic and bloat free as 
before ... no as I'm aiming for something that allows seperation 
of form and function. RebGUI has a number of limitations that under 
R2 were problematic to resolve but under R3 are doable.

Thanks. All I need to know.

That's awsome!

Ashley, interesting!

Ashley, your work is really appreciated!

That is very cool...

impressive thank you .... keep going ;-)

Wonderful Ashley.

Nice Ashley. Waiting to see RebGUI in R3. Your project could be a 
big step forward for REBOL

Ashley - maybe you can "just" write a low level layer of RebGUI3 
in such a way, that upper layers (widgets) code will require no change 
to its code? Having RebGUI available for R3 could boost R3 usage 
...

screenshots screenshots! :)

ok, I ran it :)

Reposting from R3 chat (which seems a bit quiet lately).


I've been looking at the rich text gob! functionality and it seems 
the following dialect commands are supported:

	anti-alias logic!
	bold [off]
	italic [off]
	underline [off]
	size integer!
	left|center|right
	drop integer!
	font object!
	para object!
	caret object!
	scroll pair!
	string!


Are there any I've missed? Any doco on this yet? I havn't figured 
out how to use drop or caret yet. Anyone have any working examples 
for these?


A design question: is there any reason for retaining font and para 
support given that we could move the few remaining unsupported words 
out of those objects and into the dialect itself? (e.g. have the 
dialect directly support font names and valign words).


Also, it would be nice if we had control over the default font name, 
size and alignments [at the very least]. Perhaps a system/view/text 
object?

drop discards the n previous pushed commands in the block stream.

[italic "italic" bold "bold+italic" drop 2 "no-more-bold-italic" 
]

there is something regarding 'drop that may cause crashes. this will 
be fixed, when cyphre gets around to it.

The CARET object is tricky (it handles the cursor position and the 
selected area (for hilighting), see gui.r for more infos.