World: r3wp

http://rebol.net/wiki/GUI_howto_debug#Runtime_Debug

Modifying the style code could be quite uncomfortable, when you just 
want some information quickly. I don't want to have to mess with 
files just to print a bit of custom debug info.
More debug outputs could alleviate this discomfort somewhat.

I think it's possible to create a debug function that returns a facet 
for a given face when a given event happens, like:

get-debug 'my-face 'text-body 'on-make

Yes, you can use DO with BUTTON:

	view [t: text "hello" button do [dump-face t ]]

dumps the TEXT face when the button is clicked.

Henrik - why don't you release your DocBase resizing doc? :-)

Pekr, because I know Carl will ignore it. In fact he just posted 
something like that on rebdev.

I think that nothing is set in stone, ne? It all started with the 
lack of decomposition from gob to face, no? Maybe the system could 
keep the list of references somewhere, no? Or simply face could be 
extended with the list of gobs it is composed from?

Gobs that are the top gob for a face have a reference to the face 
in something like gob/data, as I recall.

I want to get to 't because I'm trying to hack together a GUI for 
DevBase because the console client is painful to use and I thought 
this might be a good way to introduce myself to some of the internal 
workings of the new GUI.  I want to redefine "say" in the chat.r 
to update ''t with the text it would normally print.


To have changed what VIEW returns such that I can't actually get 
to the face produced is unbelievably confusing.  There must be a 
good reason for it though, what is it? 


You do realize that if I have no way creating a pointer to a face 
then I can't use get-face, set-face, etc. on it don't you???

I'm familiar with the fact that set-words are being defined in parent-face/faces 
which is why I used window: view [...]  I thought I was going to 
be looking in window/faces to get to t but View is giving me a gob 
instead of the face that I need.

Will not it be more difficult to get to some internals anyway, once 
modules are implemented?

Yes, once modules are done certain internal things will be locked 
away but that has nothing to do with my question here.

I need a solution to a problem and that solution very well may be 
a paradigm shift on my side.  I just need to know how to interact 
with the GUI from outside the GUI code OR I need an explanation of 
why the ability to do has been removed in the latest release of R3's 
GUI.

Maybe we just were too much used to things popping up into global 
space? (I am not trying to find any excuses for possible defficiencies)

Have you looked into above pointed debug functions?

The truth is, I can hack this 1.6 billion different ways.  I DON"T 
WANT TO HACK IT!!!!!  I want to use the system how it was designed 
to be used.  Simply example hack...


view [t: text "this is a test" button "Mwahahaha!" do [set 'txt t]]

The fact I can use the set trick in a reactor means I could prolly 
do the same thing in an actor, on-make, for instance.  It's not an 
issue of not being able to hack it.  I'm not looking for a hack. 
 I can hack just fine.  I want to know how the system is SUPPOSED 
to be used.

Something I did in my code all the time with VID 2 is window: layout 
[ ... ]  then go ahead and connect/modify/abuse the window in any 
number of ways and then show it later.  I'd often set up panels this 
way so that I can have the faces built ready to switch out at the 
click of a button and this would allow me to easily keep different 
areas of the GUI in sync easily but now that Layout is gone I can't 
do it this way.  The real question here is why is view returning 
the gob instead of the face?  Seems on how I actually have the GUI 
source code sitting on my machine, I can hack this to give me what 
I want the problem is, it would be a hack which means that I can't 
hack it to give me what I want because what I want is not a hack. 
 Get it? ;-)

please post your comments to RebDev, or it will NOT get noticed by 
the author =  Carl

Noted.  I'll put together a shorter, sweeter post for RebDev.

Is there a place that teaches people how to post to RebDev in the 
first place?

Yes...

http://www.rebol.net/wiki/RebDev_Quick_Start

I would at least expect chained gob structure, so that one can traverse 
it via gob/pane, gob/parent .... it escapes my mind, why window/pane 
does not contain its subelements, but maybe the meaing is here quite 
different ...

I'm actually not seeing anything in the new GUI that allows you to 
find a given face's parent.  It's really very frustrating me...

Well...  WTF do you know?  

window: view/no-wait [t: text "this is a test"] 
set-face window/data/faces/1/names/t "Mwahahahah"
show window
do-events

I posted my reaction to rebdev chat too. I am missing some aproach 
to easily traverse gui:


- there is bog/pane, but not face/pane. There is face/faces e.g. 
for panel style. If it is the same concept, why name it differently?
- there is no face/parent-face to traverse backwards

- face/gob contains just one gob. It also seems to me, that it is 
not even a pointer to the gob, but not sure. Not sure if it would 
be usefull, but currently face can't be built from multiple unrelated 
gobs. You have to have one gob, and other ones in gob/pane

Hmm, but as you show, there is some way. But it is strange. Docs 
say, that gob/data point to face. So what is "face" actually here? 
Some special Window face? Ah, I might understand and I pointed out 
already the discrepancy. While for gobs, we use /pane, as we all 
know it from VID2, but the same concept for faces is /faces .... 
While the name is clear, I vote to rename it to /pane, to make it 
apparent it is the same thing ...

Yup. I read it.  You did a very good job of describing what's been 
annoying the hell out of me for the past 4 hours.  Hopefully we'll 
get some straight answrs to all of that.

I completely agree with you on the /faces vs. /pane issue!

Eh...  I got distracted and quit playing with the RebDev client but 
I've been making good progress on the text editor I'm writing. =D

I post here what I posted elsewhere. I refuse to use RebDev - another 
non-web UI for "supporting development".  With nice features, no 
serious back end (imagine real user amounts like, a few thousands 
using this...) and no UI. And to have to move yet AGAIN....

Maarten, a few thousand? Not likely to happen right now and as Carl 
said, he would add features as needed, and there's no need to support 
a few thousand users right now. Right now the next step is a proper 
GUI.

Ammon, it sounds simply to me that some features for setting window 
titles, etc. are either missing or undocumented. I'm pretty sure 
you're not meant to use obscure paths to access features, but to 
use SET-FACE, GET-FACE, SET-FACET and GET-FACET. These features are 
much more powerful in the R3 GUI than the ones in VID.

And if they're missing, it doesn't take long to add them, so instead 
of "getting annoyed as hell", ask nicely on rebdev and Carl will 
probably find some time to add them. :-)

Henrik, my point is that you never get to a few thousand this way, 
let alone serious world domination. I'll probably check on R3 when 
it  "surfaces".

Maarten - I did agree with your POV and told Carl, that RebDev kills 
Altme. But - his reply made sense to me. We should not see it as 
a threat to Altme/web (yet), so let's suppose current RebDev is nothing 
more than CVS with ability to chat to whatever topic or file ...

... and - it was declared from the very beginning, that GUI is much 
needed here, and it will be surely done ...

I have to agree with Maarten

we should have gone for the BBS option that everyone but Carl agreed 
with.

It's nice that people completely forget the backend, the reason Carl 
built Devbase in the first place, and why he wouldn't look at other 
options. :-)

LOL. See, now Devbase is  giving me amnesia as well! Let's just say 
it's not my "thing".

We can go for any BBS anytime, it just officially will not be guaranteed 
by RT.

I was against new system, but I am satisfied with Carl's explanation 
of his POV. He needed streamlined channels for chat, bugs, CVS, filesharing. 
New system, in comparison to AltME, gives us:

- threaded discussions
- ranking
- tagging
- threaded discussions
- message/topic moving
- versioning system
- document management. Docs posted anywhere to any message.
- console version


So far, the big minus is - no GUI client. But - that might be over 
in few months ... So - if we think of RebDev as nothing more than 
RT's supporting infrastructure, I am OK with it. It is just that 
for fast dev related chat, e.g. nowadays GUI related, it can't reach 
Altme comfort and speed in not more than 20%. Threading is very confusing 
now ...

According to Carl there's no correct way to do what I'm trying to 
do yet.  That just might explain why it was so difficult to find 
the correct way to do it...

to bad liquid crashes R3.

are any of you having troubles with dynamically creating code and 
binding it as objects and stuff like that?  (In R3)

specific examples?

I'm updating DocBase GUI docs.


1. Changing the links at the bottom of each of the pages to point 
to a single template so that they are automically updated across 
all pages by changing one document.
2. Adding [[Category:GUI]] to each of them.

3. If I have time I'll start working on a VID2 to 3 document that 
describes what changed.  Things like face/parent-face is now parent-face? 
face.

I just wanted to mention that when I run the gui demo and click the 
"text view" test it causes an error on my vista machine.

Yup, Paul, that's a known bug.