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I've read through the SDK docs and am probably missing it, but how 
can you set the Company name, Description and version numbers on 
an encapped app?  (So it doesn't say REBOL Technologies in the file 
properties

This is totally fun.  I made new icons for an application and put 
them in with Resource Hacker (suggested by the documentation), but 
the icons change back and forth between mine and REBOLs based when 
I change the name of the .exe file.  Any explanation

Nope. You just need to make sure that your icon replacements are 
the same size and bit depth. You can then put your replacement icons 
in a .ico file and automate the build process with code like:


 call rejoin ["c:\rebol\bin\ResHacker.exe -addoverwrite " encap-exe 
 "," encap-exe "," to-local-file ico-file ",ICONGROUP,REBOL,1033"]


You can also do the same thing with Company/Version info and a .res 
file:


 call rejoin ["c:\rebol\bin\ResHacker.exe -addoverwrite " encap-exe 
 "," encap-exe "," to-local-file res-file ",VERSIONINFO,1,1033"]


The "switching icons" problem is a Windows thing. Highlight your 
newly created .exe file and select View|Refresh from the file explorer 
menu. This should cycle the Windows icon cache.

ashley: i'll try your refresh suggestion next time, i remember trying 
it and it didn't work (but maybe i'm wrong)

What does this mean, please? I just tried to upgrade to latest SDK, 
as I use Command on my Linux Fedora Core 1, and older Rebol does 
not know 'unless (which is used in sqlite.r driver). But I got following 
error:


./rebcmd: error while loading shared libraries: libstdc++-libc6.2-2.so.3: 
cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

I wonder if I will have to upgrade my old Fedora Core 1, or I just 
can grab the library and put it somewhere? :-)

Command adds encryption, ODBC, Oracle, (slower native) MySQL, and 
SSL.

dunno what is symlik, so .... :-) well, my friend suggested me to 
find the library in some rpm and unpack it .... I found it via rmpfind.net

I've have a script that works fine when executed with rebol but errors 
after being encapped. I know one is supposed to #include source and 
I suspect something is not being included. Is there a quick way to 
find out short of  adding them all. In case you ask...
** Script Error: Cannot use path on none! value
** Where: insert-event-func
** Near: insert system/view/screen-face/feel/event-funcs :funct
:funct
Thanks in advance.

That did cross my mind but I am including that and have tried using 
all of the encap versions. Maybe I corrupted the them. I should check.

Thanks Anton and Graham. I forgot my own first rule of  programming: 
 "When all is said and done, it's probably 'User Error.'

My memory stick that I use did not have enough space for the resulting 
file! Encap, rather than complaining just wrote what it could. After 
making some space, it did its job. I did locate some words that were 
not yet defined so I did a "Search in files" to look for where they 
might be in the sdk/source files. Finding them I "#include"'d the 
source and wow, now it works. 


So Graham you were right. It was missing View. And Anton, next time 
I will check the path; that's a much quicker way to proceed.

It all makes sense now that I'm on the other side of success.

thanks Volker, I have been trying to get to grips with the SDK.  
Somehow, I am lost when trying to find specific information... many 
times I try subjects, and I either encounter unfinished, incomplete 
or missing docs.   I do find some usefull tidbits here and there.... 
but its a pretty dry ride so far...

now, why does using 'CALL within an encapped app cause it to freeze 
up and use 100% system CPU?

yes, and no.

Maxim, the Detective uses the cgi option, and prints to the dos command 
prompt if you call it from there (try running "nren help"). It does 
not use call though, but async-call, but i don't remember problems 
with call + cgi options.

#include-string and #include-binary are what you are looking for, 
i think.

Gabriele, my issue, is that I am trying to capture the output of 
the applications I call.  For this I need to use /console AFAIK. 
 but when I do so, the encapped app just goes mad and enters some 
kind of deadlock at 100% cpu usage.

about fixing cpu busy look :-)  found a working solution.

; wherever you insert the asynch call  to system wait list... you 
also add 0.1 (or any other appropriate value for your app)
; this will obviously quit the event loop immediately.
append system/ports/wait-list clist
append system/ports/wait-list 0.1


then, where you normally call do-events OR at the end of your app, 
if not using do-events manually... you put the following:
forever [
	do-events 
]

and you have a 0% CPU consuming multiple asynch call loop.  I tried 
with the ping demo provided with async-call and it works perfectly 
on all the tests I did.

well, I did a little bit more testing and the above procedure does 
not seem to reduce rebol CPU usage while waiting for calls.  but 
I do have a method which allows you to trade off view interactivity 
for diminished cpu usage.  This obviously also slows down the async 
calls interactivity, but in most cases, this is not a real concern.

but now, the same application (ping-demo) consumes at most 10% activity 
and often under 5%  and there is almost NO discernable difference 
in view interactivity and overall call feedback !

my version also supports linux, *bsd and mac osx. (osx we have troubles 
with though, still need to investigate it)

Nenad is right, I looked in the release I got (v1.1) and its not 
gpl.  its basicelly BSD.

mmm, so probably the version i had - which was much before public 
release - had no license info, and i assumed gpl since the rest of 
the detective is gpl.

the detective does a lot of calls, and is fine. there are gc bugs 
in older rebols though. the latest sdk should be fine but i haven't 
tested it a lot yet.

yep :-)  just a plain drop in replacement to your app.  and can be 
applied to any other app.

although with tasks they're much less needed, ie you can just use 
multiple tasks and wait.

then timers to do polling on the pipes. on linux instead, you just 
get a signal when the command finishes, and read from the pipe - 
no polling needed.

If I setup the path environment and use an encapped application using 
only the filename, windows resolves the path for me, but I get the 
following error:

when you run program.exe, rebol start, and it has to load the code 
for script.r, which is embedded into program.exe

so if it cannot find the program.exe file (i.e., itself), it cannot 
extract the rebol code, and won't work.

but how can it launch itself, and not know where it is... I mean, 
the application actually loads! can't it just use appdir by default?

I just wonder why other apps know about the path where DOS prompt 
actually is at, and why encapped apps do not get that info...

python, for example, knows where it is started from and uses current 
prompt  path even though python executable path is resolved from 
path env by OS.

(my guess, is that internally it is doing something like - mixing 
rebol and c - read/binary clean-path argv[0])

in R3 the app should actually be compiled from a module stored in 
heap or something... linked on the fly and linked within a rebol.o 
as a string in heap.

i.e. basically storing a mini linker within the encap.exe and storing 
rebol.o and the supplied code as a source.o and linking them directly, 
so that the output would look like it was within rebol mezz code.

and thus loadable without file access.

The resources are a data store in the exe or dll where they put stuff 
like the icons, version info, bitmaps and such. You can put arbitrary 
data in resources, including encrypted binary data like that which 
encap turns scripts into before appending onto the interpreter. It 
would be just as easy to put the script in a resource, and then the 
program could always find it without needing the full pathname to 
the program file.

but that would need RT to actually link module code to a loader... 
which they don't do AFAIK.  basically making encap a real linker. 
 I'd rather just have a rebol.o module and perform encapping myself 
using a linker from whatever language I use (even python ;-).  Obviously 
if RT supplied a simple to use encap-like mini compiler/linker. then 
I'd surely use it out of the box.. until iI encountered issue like 
all of those I am having  with current toolset.

right now, it seems as if  all encap does is: 


save %your-script.exe append  Load/binary enface.exe compress load/binary 
your-script.r 


preprocessing just really adds more lines to your-script.r itself.. 
it adds nothing to the binary side of things like the resources which 
you describe.


My guess is that the main() of the enface checks to see if its file 
size is larger than it should and in such a case does:

do to-string decompress skip load/binary argv[0]  base-encap-size


other wise handling the args, finding a script to load, and letting 
extra args flow through to the loaded script.


this way the same binary works for both encapped and core SDK  binaries.

but that is just all assumption, based on all I have accumulated 
in the last week, both using it, finding limitations, and the feedback 
from people here and within what I could find on the net.

I think we are talking about different OSes here - you are clearly 
talking about Linux and I am talking about Windows. Linux likely 
may have something similar to resources in their executables, and 
I think it has a way to determine the (or at least a) location of 
the running executable, so there should be a platform-specific solution 
there too.

Nope, just a resource editor, and those just call Windows APIs that 
Encap can call.

Or at least some internal native function that loads from the resources, 
and then perhaps unsets itself.

I mean, if its a one hour job from within... Carl and friends might 
say "bah, why not..."

arggghhh  :-)   I was doing wishfull thinking.  I really hope RT 
starts closing loose ends.  it seems to just be creating more and 
more.

The resource APIs should make it easy, but you can also work against 
PE (Protable Executable) format files directly, editing resource 
tables and such. I wrote a resource compiler in VB a long time ago, 
and did quite a bit of research when writing a resource browser for 
PE files as well.

there is a similar post, I'll add my specificity and refer to the 
other within mine.

I also have 2.6.2, but I'm working on a script written several years 
ago, using 1.2.0.3.1, and it won't encap with 2.6.2.

Nobody can say as nobody know what script you are talking about and 
what problem you have:-)

Sunanda, that is what I was afraid of.  Without such a list I doubt 
that I could convert.  I'll just have keep and use my old version 
of the SDKI for encapping this script.

It just lies down on its back, vomits out some meaningless error 
messages (perhaps confessing past sins), then quits breathing. Doesn't 
even blink an eye.  Then I click a button and it completely disappears, 
buried somewhere on my hard drive.  I dig it up and try to revive 
it, but it is hopeless....at least for now. :>) I'm trying to get 
over it, but it is hard.

Using the old SDK and the old %view.r the program runs without error.

Louis: it's hard to say without having the source. Using the new 
SDK with the old SDK sources will probably not work. I think your 
problem is probably a change in VID (the latter error you report 
is from LAYOUT parsing values), so you should probably check your 
layout blocks (and related code). Try to run them from View and see 
what could be wrong.

Is there a better way to do this:

comment {
    ;do %/c/sdk/source/view.r
    do %/c/sdk-2-6-2/source/view.r
    do %t-db-functions.r
    do %request-date.r
}

    #include %/c/sdk/source/view.r ;NOTE: THIS IS THE OLD SDK. WON'T 
    WORK WITH NEW SDK.
    #include %t-db-functions.r
    #include %request-date.r


So that I don't have to comment out  lines when I switch from interpreter 
to encap and back.

First question: Have you considered using the preprocessor yourself 
to generate a script to interpret? See %prebol.r and %prerebol.r 
in the SDK. Second question: Try the -s parameter to the interpreter, 
it will turn security off.

The common approach with INCLUDE is to have a "launcher" script  
that builds a complete script, as you would use PREREBOL; then you 
just DO that output script. Another way you can do it is to check 
a known word from the script with VALUE? and only DO the script if 
VALUE? returns false for a word you know is set in the script. That's 
also easy to put into a loop, with word and script pairs.

I think we've all hit this at one time or another. REBOL won't write 
to the Windows console. I was just trying a test to use the API to 
do it, and can't get that to work either, so it's still piping or 
nothing.

Quoting Gabriele: "Maxim, the Detective uses the cgi option, and 
prints to the dos command prompt if you call it from there (try running 
"nren help"). It does not use call though, but async-call, but i 
don't remember problems with call + cgi options."

and its not very professional for clients...

Now I can either create a wrapper program that can do this and runs 
my rebol program in the background, or ask my users to use 'more

I thought the API approach would at least work, but I don't know 
if doing it inside a process that has already opened the console 
in a non-shared mode would cause the issues I saw or not. And I would 
think that CGI mode would work too.

and could wrap my app in a little batch file... to make it invisible 
...

are there ways to extract version information about an encapped binary 
from REBOL? I'm building a software update tool and want to read 
the version information about a specific binary.

not AFAICT cause its always the same wrapper, and the content is 
encrypted, so you can't just read and parse the binary  !

I guess it would be possible to do a checksum and correlate that 
against a version list.

yes, the app and updates come from me and so I'll know which version 
it is if I just have a checksum on the executable.

robert the problem you see with selected line and sort is because 
to speed the sorting process I change the widget field (text, data, 
image) content and so they conserv there index. What I need to do 
to not loose perf is to change the actual color seek the picked content 
and pass to the select-line function the new index ;)

because of the use of find and select-line fonction :)

now the code search for the whole picked content  into trigerred 
 data/2 and not only for one thing ...

Before adding new function to the list widget I'm actually tryaing 
to improve de yet existing things in order to not have to work on 
it any more later. So I work on order symbolisation (thank you ashley 
for the inspiration) and on column resizing algorithm and visuability 
:)

Latest build available at: http://www.dobeash.com/files/RebGUI-022.zip

Highlights include:

	- Added drop-list, edit-list and auto-fill widgets
	- New splash function added (run %tour.r to see it in action)

 - Window management logic improved (disallows duplicate windows and 
 "sticks" child windows to first)
	- Couple of minor fixes and cosmetic improvements
	- %tour.r has an additional "List" tab

 - Prototype table widget added (run %table-002.r to see it in action)

Known issues

	- spinner and auto-fill widgets need more work
	- edit-feel needs to handle highlight, cut & paste
	- scroller needs more work (resizeable dragger)
	- table needs row selection logic added
	- edit-list needs auto-fill logic added

In progress

	- Improved tab-panel
	- Menu
	- tabbing
	- field input validation (field input masks, etc)
	- list-view (shadwolf)


With regards to "lists", I envision 5 types we need. They are (in 
ascending order of complexity):


 drop-list	- non-editable, single sorted column with single value 
 selection [optimized for < 100 values]

 edit-list	- derived from drop-list but editable with an auto-fill 
 field

 table		- multi-column representation of a DB table; used to create 
 something like a GUI SQL client with single-row selection [< 100,000 
 rows]

 list-view	- multi-column multi-media content (supports images, URL's, 
 etc); used to create something like a file explorer with single perhaps 
 multi-row selection [<10,000 rows]

 grid		- cell-level addressing and editing supporting simple spreadsheet 
 formulas and formatting [< 1,000 rows]

another trick is to focus on the headers, and let the list-part be 
build by the user. where the header keeps some info for the list, 
like the column-width/resizing.

I just tried RebGui 022 and would like to report something: Lists 
- once you open selection menu, you can't close it by clicking outside 
of it. ESC works, which is good, but clicking outside the menu should 
close it imo ...

What hits my eye a bit though is LED design - too boxy/narrow in 
comparison to check-boxes, radio-buttons etc. The color is a bit 
obtrusive and maybe not all their area needs to be filled with particular 
color? But that is just very cosmetic detail ...

and ofcourse conserving a good process speed :)

when you do a: 123 then a: "fdsbfsdjbh" it would be interresting 
to detect if the a word yet exist and then trash the interger (123) 
content of this word and then allocate to the word a the string! 
new content.. this will be an internal  totally transparent way to 
handle memory allocation /deallocation

and this will influence every var content (I think that's better 
than having memory leak when event are used ....

new GC is inserted into 102 version but I francly don't see any différence 
in tour.r with RebGUI 0.22  we start a 6800 Ko and the memory is 
cleaned when 8500 Ko is reached and cleaned  to 7400 Ko ...

(regarding de/allocation) I don't know if it would change something 
in our case: in /View, event objects are generated by user/system. 
The event object carrying mouse 'move information may not be used, 
but one can only know and discard it at the end of the event processing 
chain (a global event-func or a face feel) - could be tricky to do

new GC: it must be various corrections to crashes and speedups. I 
don't know if anything has changed on conditions for garbage collection 
triggering.

for example the mouse pointer event is stored into the same var but 
betwin two allocations you have no memory clear so glob vars are 
the same the content is not the same and the only thing that change 
is the memory adress related to the new data allocated

does it scan the entire memory ? does it make the comparaso betwin 
the whole memory content table and the actual rebol word content 
?

Hi Ashley and Shadwolf  sorry if i didn't answer before i was out 
of town ( mother's day =P ) let me explained to you why the auto-fill 
on a drop-list ...

If you have a big drop-list ( non editable ) with 60 salesman ( big 
store ) and you shadwolf because of your name are close to the 50th. 
position the way to select your name frome that drop list would be 
with the mouse

and no i am not talking about an edit-list. And is not an auto-fill 
per se routine. More like a keystroke capture routine so that it 
would do a search on the list  = )

the combo-box? yes but it's one of the more complicate, buggy and 
error-prone interface in Windows. it's like a popup textlist associated 
with an editable field. (had painful moments with it in Visual Basic)

Yes about usability. It's a all-in-one widget: one can use it to 
replace menu, lists, simple requesters (like the fonts and colors 
selection in MSWord), toolbars, auto-complete fields, etc. So it's 
mostly a shortcut to put more widgets (or compact them) in a window 
and can be confusing for users: what will happen if I select something, 
write in the field, click outside the list, click inside on the left, 
on the right, hit enter? It's a full requester in one widget: you 
can do the same with a request-list -like requester with ok/cancel 
buttons.

Vincent i understand what you are saying and i totally agree with 
you. It is not a big issue all i am trying to convey is that if you 
have a non-editable field with different choices it would be easier 
for some of us  to select those choices with the keyboard instead 
of the mouse.

when you select the language for windows installation, and the timezone 
etc, they use these very large unwieldly drop lists :(

Luisc we have 2 item in fact edit-list to handle large data with 
some useful stuf like list vertical scroller and auto-fill field 
This is what you want. And the drop -list widget that is for handle 
tinny list of data :)

Luisc so what you need is yet planned and it's called editor-list 
not drop-list ;)

I'm going to work some days on MDPWiki Project so during this time 
I want you to make me lot of comments and suggestion on listview 
widget. Once  I'm done with MDPwiki I will retake all the comments 
and suggestions and add them to listview ;)

in your main script you put a do %sub-folder/gui.r and that's all 
;)

sometimes its easier to put all in one folder. you see all at once, 
no need for tools to recurse, and ios uploads more easily.

packaging: I vote for it. What's up with the requestors? Are these 
always needed? If possible we should find a way to pack those things 
together that are always needed and let the rest be optional.

Prefix rg- is OK with me. But remember, people don't know what rg- 
means, and rebgui is only four letters more but hundreds of questions 
less. Never shorten things just to shorten them... semantic is the 
key.

rebgui needs to be easy to use: Just copy, load and use. :-)) That's 
what I like about it.

Regarding scrollers and sliders in RebGUI: I examine a strange behaviour 
here. If you grab a knob near it's edge (left/right for horizontal, 
top/bottom for vertical scrollers) and drag it, you'll notice how 
the mouse pointer's offset to the knob changes relative to the amount 
that the knob changes it's offset from the scrollers boundaries. 
I haven't seen something like that in any of the (not so many) UIs 
I've came across, so I'd suggest that this gets fixed to conform 
to what people are used to.