Re: Extending a GTK+ Application with Guile

[Paul Emsley]

On 24/05/12 20:11, Kevin J.Fletcher wrote:
> Hello Guilers.
>
>
> My intent is to add guile as a method of [optionally, at build time]
> extending a GTK+ application. With the addition of being able to run
> guile scripts I hope to provide a guile-shell to give real-time
> interactive power.

Very good.  That is what I do with Coot.

> First a question of program architecture;
>
> As the guile extensions are optional I run GTK on a main thread and the
> shell on a second pthread. I connect the shell through a PTY to the
> virtual terminal widget.
>
>    THREAD1            THREAD2
>   ---------           -------
> | GTK     |   pty   | guile |
> |     VTE |<------->| shell |
> |  -----  |          -------
> | guile   |
> |  scripts|
>   ---------

Bleugh!

> 0) Is there anything wrong with this architecture?

Yes.

>     a) Is it valid to use both scm_shell and other guile code at the same
>     time or is scm_shell designed to run in isolation?

By "at the same time" do you mean in "a different thread"?

If so, don't do that.

I use scm_shell() but only for command-line/non-gtk-graphics mode.
To interact with guile I use guile-gui.

>     b) Not related to guile but while I'm here I may as well ask. Is there
>     a more appropriate GTK+ method of communicating (STDIN, STDOUT,
>     STERR) with the running application (to replace the VTE above)

It is not clear to me that you need VTE and threads.

I have my guile-scripts/functions (well, 99% of them) run in the 
main/gtk thread - many using timeout functions.

> 2) Thinking of portability, is guile running on Windows (without
> cygwin), to justify the claim of 'ubiquitous'?

My understanding is that it is possible, but non-trivial.  We have not 
made a guile-enabled Coot on Windows (yet).

HTH,

Paul.