NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/comp/lang/pop/176

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-28 | 2.6 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!pipex!bnr.co.uk!uknet!bhamcs!percy!tmr
From: [e-mail] (Tim Read)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pop
Subject: The Joys of X !!
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 28 Dec 92 14:44:20 GMT
Sender: [e-mail]
Distribution: comp.lang.pop
Organization: School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham, UK
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I am still `on the case' of trying to get X thingies (bitmaps, widgets etc)
into a window created by the rc_graphic library. To my knowledge there are a
couple of ways to import X bitmaps, but in each case I am missing some part
of the jigsaw puzzle, so am unable to complete the process. Watch this
space.

Another problem I wish to solve is how to create and obtain a handle for an
X widget for use within the same rc_graphic window. This does not appear to
be an easy task. I don't like to criticise rc_graphic too much, as it does
make life much easier in the majority of cases. However one problem with it
is that the types of things that can be created and drawn within the X
window are very limited.

For anyone trying to display an environment with many different objects,
things get very frustrating. You are basically limited to lines and
alphanumeric characters. You can build moderately complex objects using a
function that puts together a few lines etc, but that gets very slow when
you come to display things. I am also using colour and sound of course, but
that limits the numbers of machines I can run my code on. I don't require
the widget to have any functionality, like a button might have, just to be
displayable.

Well considering it is (was) xmas recently, if I ask nicely enough perhaps
Santa will supply me with pointers to the knowledge as to how to create such
widgets, and a corresponding set of functions to display and manipulate
them.

I don't want to have to use any `big' existing libraries that were designed
for other purposes, as the key thing here is speed, or efficiency if you
like (that's got Steve's attention!). I have tried wading through the help
and ref files but find them somewhat indigestible, after all the turkey...

Has anyone done anything like this?, or have any code fragments that I could
browse to understand how best to go about such code?

Thanks in advace,

Tim
--
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    Tim Read, Email: [e-mail], The Attention and Affect Project
    Room LG23, School of Computer Science, The University of Birmingham,
    B15 2TT, England, Phone: [phone], Fax: [phone]
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