[cells-gtk-devel] start-app and multithreading?

[Peter Denno]

On Tuesday 04 December 2007 13:09, Peter Hildebrandt wrote:
> Kenny and Peter,
>
> thanks for your response.
>
> On Tue, 04 Dec 2007 17:57:47 +0100, Peter Denno
> <peter.denno at nist.gov>
>
> wrote:
> >> I usually structure my applications with a "system" instance at
> >> the top, system being a family subclass, each child being a
> >> window. Or I go further and have system be a tree of
> >> applications of windows. That sort of thing. If I was doing a
> >> network app I would extend that to model a bigger world. Anyway,
> >> then new windows are made at the repl with:
> >>
> >>    (push (my-new-window) (kids *sys*))
> >>
> >> Where I have bound the system instance to *sys*.
>
> Sounds extremely reasonable.  I guess that's what I will do in my
> application.
>
> > Come to think of it you could call,
> >
> > (depth-first-search <root-window> #'fail #'kids :do #'(lambda (k)
> > (push k <whatever>)))
> >
> > at any point, and <whatever> would contain the list of all
> > widgets found through navigating the kids slot.
> >
> > #'depth-first-search and #'fail are in pod-utils. It is part of
> > the distribution.
>
> I wonder whether this is really what one wants in a gui toolkit.
> Cells-gtk should simply find all windows

I'm not sure what you mean by "find all windows" but if you mean find 
all widgets starting at some parent, where by parent I mean the 
relationship specified by the kid slot, I see no reason not to do the 
above.

> and get rid of them, s.t. 
> no inactive ones remain.  The approach above would miss windows
> which are created by plainly using (make-be 'window).

Not sure why you'd want to do that, but then I've been away from this 
code for too long.

>
> Is there anything wrong with hooking into md-awaken/not-to-be?  I
> put the following in my code:
>
> (let ((open-windows nil))
>    (defmethod md-awaken :after ((self window))
>      (pushnew self open-windows))
>    (defmethod not-to-be :before ((self window))
>      (setf open-windows (delete self open-windows )))
>    (defun not-to-be-all ()
>      (mapcar #'not-to-be open-windows)
>      (setf open-windows nil)))
>
> where not-to-be-all is called when the user closes the main window.
> Appears to be working perfectly.  Am I missing something?

Looks OK to me, but I might not be the best person to ask, at this 
point.

Anyone?

>
> Checked creating a dozen windows, closing some with Alt-F4, some
> with menu-close, some with the close box, and having the main app
> (test-gtk, surprise, surprise) take the rest down with it.
>
> >> The other way I have been known to get to all windows is to use
> >> some hook offered by the windowing API, but I do not know if GTk
> >> offers such a beast.
>
> I'll keep that one in mind, in case the former approach fails.
>
> >> As for the rest, yes, many times I have wrestled with the
> >> different world view held by the C developer to get to the point
> >> where I can do iterative development in Lisp calling a C
> >> windowing library that expects to get a fresh process with each
> >> run. Obviously a make/break deal for us Lispniks, and it can
> >> indeed require detailed analysis of the internals of the target
> >> platform, especially at the edges where we are creating and
> >> disposing of windows. It took me more than a few hours to sort
> >> out the various sequences of messages/events arising during the
> >> various ways a window can be closed, such as by the user
> >> clicking the close box vs the application initiating a close in
> >> response to alt-F4 vs etc etc So you all are on the right track,
> >> don't get discouraged, use as much duct tape as you need to get
> >> to interactive development.
>
> Glad to hear that I'm not alone.  Actually it is strange anyone
> would give up and settle for any other type of UI development. 
> This is so much fun, like I'm not merely poking around in the
> internals of my application while it is running, I can watch even
> watch it react.  Kinda like when I pulled those cylinder heads on
> my 1962 Cadillac a couple years ago.

I'm with ya there. I always wondered whether others who hacked code 
with enthusiasm did this sort of thing too.

>
> >> And
> >> to be honest, if certain nasty combinations arise and force a
> >> complete bounce of my Lisp once a day I just get on with it. :)
> :
> :)
>
> Regards,
> Peter
>
> >> kt

-- 
Best regards,
  - Peter