Re: GUI work (was: Graphical help browser)

[John Swensen]

On Jan 27, 2009, at 10:28 PM, John W. Eaton wrote:

> On 28-Jan-2009, Pedro L. Lucas wrote:
>
> | We need your help to do that. You (or all togheter) must define an
> | interface for IDEs.
> | If you don't do that, every IDE will make its own interface ==>  
> Chaos
>
> Why should this be my job?  I don't personally care that much about
> using an IDE for Octave, so I'm fairly certain that I would not be the
> right person for this job.  Instead, I think the people who care about
> writing and using IDEs should be involved in the discussion, and
> should ultimately be the ones to write most of the code.  That doesn't
> mean I won't have an opinion about what design is good or bad, or what
> should be included in Octave, but I doubt that I will be making it a
> priority to come up with something.
I don't think it is your job. In fact, after the patch was applied to  
allow multiple event hooks for the readline idle event, I think there  
is little that need to be added to the core of Octave.  In my case,  
where I run OctaveDE in the same process, I am able to register an  
event hook for direct access to Octave data.  However, even for those  
running in a different process and using IPC, it is really as simple  
as making something like the octave_server class in OctaveDE as an OCT  
file and registering it at startup.  It may make sense to have all the  
IDE people get together and hammer out what this combined IPC and  
direct call class should look like, and try to make it the same for  
all IDEs, but in the long run it may *never* need to be part of Octave  
proper.

> | If I start to send patches, these patches will work only for  
> QtOctave,
> | because I will define my own interface.
>
> What prevents you from designing something more general?
>
> | XML interface sounds good. Easy to use and can be used from all
> | programming languajes. I think thqt QtOctave can be modified to  
> use it
> | and so do other IDEs.
> |
> | What do you think?
>
> Does XML do a good job for large amounts of binary data (like a large
> double precision floating point array, which is something that is
> common in Octave)?  If not, then I'm not sure it's really a good
> choice.

I can imagine the main reason for sending back data will be for  
scalars.  I often use the variable inspector in the Matlab IDE to  
quickly see variable values.  I also often use the mouseover feature  
in the editor after a breakpoint has been hit to see variables.  But,  
you are right that it is rarely for variables larger than 3 elements.

> Why should the IDE run separately from Octave?  It seems to me that it
> would be better for it to be more closely integrated.  For example,
> running in a separate thread.
>
>
> jwe


Having made these comments, I also must comment that as I get further  
into my PhD, I am finding less and less time to work on OctaveDE.  In  
fact, the last 2-3 months I probably haven't done more than add a few  
code comments and answer people's emails about it.  So, I don't know  
if a call for help is deemed proper by the list admins, but if someone  
is interested I would be open to some help.  It also might motivate me  
to stay up late a few more nights if I know someone else is depending  
on me making progress for them to make progress.

John Swensen