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Does anyone here know about matrix math and can advise me on how 
to derive the same transform as is made by the draw dialect's IMAGE 
command with four arbitrary corner points ?

One thing I love using View for is to make very quick custom GUIs 
for customers who need to carry out special tasks, but have no idea 
how to do it via the command line. It takes minutes to build something 
up (say a simple backup/restore system) and show them which buttons 
to press. It can almost be done right in front of them.


I'd hate having to resort to downloading a 50-100 MB Flash development 
tool or build and compile Visual Basic apps, which, ooops, don't 
really work on their Linux box, and I just need a GUI with two buttons 
and a text field. Also how much system access does Flash give you? 
Can you create/move/delete files?


It's so much nicer to say "Sure, let me do this and it can be done 
in an hour" rather than "I'll have a look at it at home and we'll 
see what I can deliver some time next week."


For those things, it doesn't matter that View doesn't use Aero, Quartz 
Extreme or super fast hardware acceleration to display a few simple 
buttons. It just does the job you need to do.

Anton, I know about matrix math and have a book here with the standard 
4x4 matrix operations for transformation like rotation, scale, etc. 
in 3D, if you need those. But are you sure, AGG use matrix math to 
do the 4-corner IMAGE trick? I would guess, it's some (2D) texture 
algorithm.

Anton, one approach is to make a scanline routine. Sort the 4 corners 
according to y-coord. Start with the point with the lowest y-coord 
and look the colour up in the image (the point in that corner). For 
the next line (down on the monitor), you find the fraction, you've 
moved along the line to the point at the right side from where you 
started, and the same for the line to the point on the left side. 
Then you can find each colour for the pixels between the 2 points. 
You can keep doing this, until you reach one of the 2 next corners 
in the original corner points. Then you go along a new line to the 
last corner point. The same for the other end of the scanline. A 
problem is then to make the result look smooth. Bi-linear or tri-linear 
filtering can help here. I hope, I make some sense. It's a lot easier 
to draw than explain.

Maybe a little drawing can help me:

00010000
00222000
03333300
44444440
05555555
00666660
00077700
00008000

0 = background

1-8 = the 8 scanlines, this little figure is made of. The 8 scanlines 
are drawn starting with 1 and ending with 8. The colours in each 
pixel in each scanline is picked from the original image.

Also how much system access does Flash give you? Can you create/move/delete 
files?

RASH gives any flash movie total control over the desktop via Rebol. 
 RASH was 'absorbed' by ~Framewerks~, and now we can 'push' to the 
browser via RASH

I've found over the years, that the best solutions are hybrids... 
part browser, part javascript (ajax),  part rebol (uniserve), and 
flash (UI and pushing to the browser via flash's tcp and DOM handling)

Oh, it's been a while, since I did C++, but it's something like:
6 private (internal) variables: den, den_step ... nom_y_step
2 public: x and y
Constructor iterator_x without arguments does nothing.

Constructor iterator_x with 3 arguments (and a constant!? The constant 
is an 8D vector) does (REBOL code):
den: (m[6] * tx) + (m[7] * ty) + 1.0
...
y: nom_y / den

Then an operator ++, so you can write: iterator_x_object++;

And the operator runs the code in the function. End of class definition 
at the };

Then some sort of begin situation!? I think, if you make an object 
of class iterator_x, you give 3 arguments: x, y and step. Then m_mtx 
is added from somewhere. m_mtx must be defined somewhere else, I 
guess.

So in all, an instance of the class iterator_x is made giving 3 arguments, 
and the constant m_mtx is added from somewhere. The iterator is used 
by using the operator ++, and the 2 variables x and y can be seen 
from the outside world.

but thanks for your overview. What's confusing to me was the constructor 
variable initialisation after the : (colon). I remember that notation 
now, and I think it looks so stupid, like they're function calls.

My guess is, that Anton made a function in REBOL like IMAGE used 
in the DRAW dialect. It takes 4 points and do some calculations producing 
a modified image. Like what I do in Canvas, when you use perspective. 
I'm using DRAW for that, Anton is converting the routine from AGG 
C++-source.

Not quite, although I think I could. What I have done is made a function 
which can transform a point from one space into another. Eg, for 
Geomol's example above, it maps from the image (logo.gif) space into 
the final rendered space shown on screen. So I could ask for any 
point in the image and find out where it is rendered to at the end.

You have a "twisted" image and want the original one!? :-)

Not that I would ask a user to use a rotated and skewed gui..!

I"m trying to install Suse on a new AMD motherboard and it doesn't 
recognise the video on the motherboard, and so get some rather disturbing 
effects.

Anton: I can put the video on my surfnet account, bandwidt enough, 
so you can be slashdotted. Suppl me with a page with all the credits, 
and ...

I think there must be a simple dialect to help updates. When a window 
is moved, the remote desktop probably sends "move 40x100 300x320 
to 50x110" to the local machine, and also small background chunks 
to clean up the window drag trash left behind.

You would not need to send images. send the samee events to two apps 
and both behave the same. At least as long as no timers are involved, 
else you need a mimic-time too :)

try saving it locally and then play it, or just run the script.

Go to http://doom9.net/
and click on Codecs to find XVID 1.1

Good question, but I don't think so. And should it be position related 
to last command, or should transformations be taken into consideration? 
Like:

.... effect [ draw [translate 234x123 matrix [1 0 0 0 -1 0] line 
20x-20 40x40]]
What is position?

I finally got around to making a nice little "command line" function 
FIND-FILE.
You can use it with optional arguments like this:
	find-file *.r    ; just lists all files with ".r" suffix.

 find-file *.r "rebol"   ; lists all files with ".r" suffix and containing 
 "rebol" 
	find-file * "rebol"  ; all files containing "rebol"
etc...

push, pop and tree are pretty stable. Find-file is pretty new, but 
so far no problems. Find-file is short, so it's a good example of 
how to use tree.

I don't think it's easy to completely replace windows shell. I use 
dir-utils and find-file for most simple file system tasks already, 
but I use windows DOS console for all those particular windows DOS 
things.

now the thing is, if we want to reinvent the wheel. I do remember 
very powerfull consoles (even with coloring modes) from Amiga days, 
and if we talk non X-windows Linux installation, we do want to use 
text based console anyway ...

having a separate console seems to me causes a problem with rebol 
processes that do not initially print anything on a console. the 
problem arises when needing to print to a console. where to go? If 
another rebol process is already running, the new process starts 
printing there, "merging" the two consoles and rendering the console 
useless.

I'd like the option to use a native console. I'm frequently using 
Windows remotely and that can be a little awkward to do cross-platform, 
and can be high bandwidth as well. The NT console is powerful enough.

as for Windows, I am used to own graphical one. And how do we get 
cross-platform console, which behaves the same way, if not having 
rebol own one?

why the amiga console was so powerfull and windows is so weak? it 
even can't use tab to form form commands ... without that feature 
I am agains using native windows console ...

the windows rebol console has one thing I hate.... when you type 
in a long sentence and accidentally press arrow-up, the sentence 
is lost

Win2k has tab completion and arrow keys cycling through your history, 
doskey built in.

rebol native console is not perfect, but I do remember that old 1.x 
days and unless windows console provides better experience, it becomes 
denerving pretty quickly .... slowing you down ...

I don't want any TweakUI - I talk about what comes with os as default 
.... I want to use rebol on many machines and am not willing/nor 
I will not be probably able, to install TweakUI on each of them ....

Well, I want native console mode REBOL to integrate with other console 
mode apps and scripts, and for when I am already in console mode 
and need to do something without switching to a GUI. When I am in 
GUI mode already, the existing console is fine. I need both.

Brian - good point - both modes are probably usefull and both have 
its own advantages ...

TweakUI for Win9x through 2k:

    http://download.microsoft.com/download/winme/Install/1.0/WinMe/EN-US/Tweakui.exe
And for WinXP/2003:

    http://download.microsoft.com/download/f/c/a/fca6767b-9ed9-45a6-b352-839afb2a2679/TweakUiPowertoySetup.exe

I find myself using TweakUI and the calculator (not available for 
Win2k) the most.

Using rebol as shell is quitge nice. I wrap my favorit commands in 
functions, tab-completion for filenames and commands is there, call/console. 
i can mix pure rebol in, and want wrappers anyway for some long options.

You need to bind in ctx-text AND system/view (double bind)

One of the challenges I am facing in expanding my EMR is how to capture 
the consultation.  At the moment I am using free text.  But some 
products use lots of check boxes and based upon those ... more check 
boxes appear.  And then a natural language sentence is constructed.

Another way is to have the sentence prebuilt .. and there are active 
words eg yes/no in the sentence you can click on to change, or to 
enter values eg. temperature of xxx C.

Graham, you could use the link style to popup an option list when 
clicked. Though that will be tedious for data entry. alternately 
use the autofill style for text boxes when you want both free text 
and or a standard list.

well, sure. I just thought that there would be a way, like using 
first, second and third on objects

(security and modules aside)

yes, and it would behave like a completely different function in 
that case, which is bad imho

select instead is already dispatched because it's an action, and 
it would not change its behaviour (returns a value)

I like it and you thought also about the text to the buttons.

Feel free to use it. I haven't made docs yet and I plan to rewrite 
it (but not change the functionality). The source to toolbar-demo.r 
should be fairly explanatory.

I got bored and played around with gradients: http://www.hmkdesign.dk/rebol/bored.r

funny, my mac and the PC gives about the same framerate. the rate 
is set to 50, but I get about 5-7 fps on both machines.

How do you know the frame rate on a moving pattern?  It could be 
187 frames per second, and moving so fast that it appears to be moving 
slow, or even backwards : )

One can always change "r: r + 1 // 360" to "r: r + 10 // 360"

Oh...and very nice Henrik.

it's a haphazard set of tuples, blocks and "oh hey that looks funny, 
I'll put that in" moments. presto, jet engine purely with gradients.

With enough memory you can prerender the images and simply play them. 
And after a few degrees it looks the same as before, so you can save 
a lot memory.

engage: func [f a e] [
					; A click event has happened.
					if a = 'down [
						; Is it on a valid element?
						if cnt > length? slf/data [exit]
						; If not extended selection, clear other selections:
						if not e/control [f/state: cnt clear picked]
						; Set selection and call the action function:
						alter picked f/text
						do :act slf f/text
					]
					if a = 'up [f/state: none]
					show pane
				]

great, I've checked Volker's code and it's exactly what I wanted, 
thanks!

hmm, but maybe we should have higher concept - kind of methods? Well, 
not once again (I was thinking about accessors and their non-fully 
developed potential) ... the most difficult part for new View will 
be - consistent look ... and the look should count in things like 
disable/enable, display the widget has focus ...

well, currently it's not that far yet, but maybe it would be nice 
with an open brainstorming group which we could study and grab the 
good parts from.

I want to be sure, new VID (Whatever it is called) will be fully 
keyboard ready, that widgets can be disabled/enabled, focused/unfocused 
and that all this is visually reflected ...

take localisation into account (e.g. calendar does not use system/locale), 
and if you will implement set get for styles, it would be good to 
have it kind of rewrite methods .... set-face 'parameter value, not 
just set-face 'value - unnecessary limited :-)

For all you guys maintaining tutorials etc. Here is a couple of polished 
demos, a simpler one and a more advanced one, a couple of snapshots 
on the way to implementing your own list with drag-n-drop:

/output implies /wait. you need to use CALL without refinements if 
you want it to be async, or use the ASYNC-CALL function in the Detective 
(which is based on Nenad's on Windows, and uses my implementation 
on Linux/Unix).

not quite enough apparently. If  I activate the emailer from the 
console and the SMTP server, etc. is not set correctly, it correctly 
prompts this, but it then doesn't start the viewtop to let me set 
this with SET-USER. Instead it just shows the emailer window.

I have a bunch of *.bmp with a transparent color (effect[key]) and 
want to make animated gifs from them. how can i do that? Cn rebol 
help, or which tools?

from plugin-2, launching *.r with doubleclick, locally: i usually 
right-click, choose "open with/others" and get a checkbox to make 
rebol default. Although when installing fresh, rebol is already there.

Ok, from RebGUI group, as it's not just related to RebGUI:


I have the following problem from time to time on my system and always 
on the system of one of my testers.


On my system: I start my app, the gui comes up and I click the first 
widget and the app falls back to the console. Without an error. This 
happens as do-events returns.


The same problem is on the other system, but here I only can do one 
click on a widget.

I really couldn't specify it more narrow. I have the same effect 
on my system, when my app exited with an error. I hack in UNVIEW 
and than restart it, I alway return to the console immediatly. Doing 
it once again, UNVIEW and restart, than it works.

If I use UNVIEW two times, it works immediatly.

Thx. So I just add this code before my app and see what's spit out?

Hmm... I now have added to records to my app and since then it works. 
What could cause do-events to exit?

if you  added data and it works, sounds like something memory-related. 
changed memory-layout, other part is hit.

I use Ashley's SQLite stuff, but don't expect it to use any ports. 
Than I use RebGUI (don't know if this uses any ports).


I used Volker's snippet and while it spits our messages, the app 
works. As soon as I remove the code, it fails again.

I add the probe do-events and here is the result:
probe do-events

make port! [
    scheme: 'event
    host: none
    port-id: none
    user: none
    pass: none
    target: "events"
    path: none
    proxy: none
    access: none
    allow: none
    buffer-size: none
    limit: none
    handler: none
    status: none
    size: none
    date: none
    url: none
    sub-port: none
    locals: none
    state: make object! [
        flags: 4719107
        misc: none
        tail: 0
        num: 1
        with: "^/"
        custom: none
        index: 0
        func: 12
        fpos: 0
        inBuffer: none
        outBuffer: none
    ]
    timeout: none
    local-ip: none
    local-service: none
    remote-service: none
    last-remote-service: none
    direction: none
    key: none
    strength: none
    algorithm: none
    block-chaining: none
    init-vector: none
    padding: none
    async-modes: none
    remote-ip: none
    local-port: none
    remote-port: none
    backlog: none
    device: none
    speed: none
    data-bits: none
    parity: none
    stop-bits: none
    rts-cts: true
    user-data: none
    awake: func [port][wake-event port]
]

Looks like we (Cyphre and I) found it. Seems to be a problem in combination 
with RebGUI and Anamonitor in that the event system is somehow patched. 
I will test it further and let you know.

There are problems with TOG: When pressing a TOG, sometimes the outline 
doesn't disappear like it should, making the TOG appear to only darken 
and not be pressed. This has confused some of my users a lot. I haven't 
been able to find it in RAMBO. Should I create a ticket?

well, I kind of use it everywhere and since it's a standard VID it 
should behave somewhat correctly. :-)

Ok I see it. Click and drag away from the tog and the gold outline 
remains.

I think all the supporters of hover effects should get together now 
and fix this bug. I'm not touching it.

hmm... are there circumstances where function! will become undefined 
when using stylize/master? I'm doing a bit of optimization by replacing 
DOES, HAS and FUNC with MAKE FUNCTION!

and when I define the third face, FUNCTION! is suddently undefined.

tried that here too and works. what about 3-4 different faces in 
the same block?

acquire-func: [] was turned into acquire-make function!: []

the joys of search and replace :-)

make function! is an optimization compared to has, does and function, 
but not so much so compared to func. For now (REBOL 2) func is a 
simple wrapper around make function! that does nothing to its arguments 
- the only overhead added is that of a single function call.


You should also keep in mind that the syntax of make function! will 
be changing in REBOL 3, so all code that uses it will require some 
changes. The syntax of func, has, does and function will remain the 
same.

Ashley: yes, this can be noticable for really large frameworks...say 
with ten thousands functions and more. There you can gain few miliseconds 
with this optimization during the load time.

Q: Is it possible to create an app that at the same time reads two 
data/ports.

F.ex. load an image from net and at the same time read data from 
GPS and display it on old image?

So am I right:

I need to define before ports:

gps-port:  open ....

url-port: open ... ??? ( read  doesnot fit here?)

user-port: ??? also is needed 

and then loop with wait [ gps-port url-port user-port ] [
	do I need here to catch what port it is 
	and do apropriate actions
]

That's right, READ and WRITE are like a wrappers for OPEN and CLOSE. 
 eg. 
	READ url 
is equivalent to:
	OPEN port
	.... copy data here ....
	CLOSE port

and decide what to do based on active,
 if same? avtive gps-port[..]

and then here is async, which is a bit faster. Because /no-wait still 
does some waiting for error-checks. for async you need a library, 
by gabriele, romano or DocKimbel. Or deep knowledge.

perhpas a silly question, but how do I determine the name of a function 
mi currently in ?

As in, Im creating functions with a random-name and I would like 
to know in what function-name
im currently in... Is this possible ??? Like a 'SELF or 'ME ?

Thanks - already found!

What I am missing is what else words I could use for tray controls 
and messages received?
F.ex.
Can I activate tray meny un left click?
Is it possible to make submenus for systary icons?

How to change part o f a color in gradient?
F.ex.

	at 535x100 box teal 30x315 effect [
		draw [
			fill-pen linear 0x0 0 315 90 1 1 red yellow green
			box 0x0 30x315
		]
	]


Now I have each color equal, but how to make so that f.ex. green 
is ~50%, Yellow ~30% and red ~20% of box?

These are all ways of specifying the same thing:
view layout [area wrap]
view layout [area para [wrap?: yes]]
view layout [area with [para: make para [wrap?: yes]]]

view layout [area with [append init [para: make para [wrap?: yes]]]]

and you can test a little bit faster by making the area nice and 
thin:
view layout [area 40 wrap]

I have a small problem regarding event handling in TOOLBAR: Each 
icon consists of an icon frame face with a pane that contains the 
icon image and a text face.


The icon frame face has an ENGAGE event set for highlighting, doing 
the action of the button, etc. The containing faces both have their 
feel set to NONE.


Now when clicking on either the text and the image, the event seems 
to correctly bubble up to the icon-frame face, but OVER and AWAY 
events correspond to the face in which the event occurs, which can 
be for example the text face. So if you click on the text face and 
then drag away, the click is no longer valid, even if the mouse is 
still over the icon-frame face, because it detects OVER and AWAY 
for the face, I'm clicking and not the parent face.


This causes some clicks to be lost if you are clicking at the edge 
of the text face and accidentally moving the mouse away from the 
text face, say, the space between the icon and the text which is 
a natural place to click.


I've tried using DETECT, but this is greatly inefficient, because 
it processes all events.


I've noticed that the standard ICON face in VID behaves the same 
way. which I think is incorrect. Is there a way to transfer OVER 
and AWAY information from the parent face?

view layout [i: icon "Hello!"]


demonstrates this: Click and hold on the text and drag towards the 
icon. Or do the same from the icon towards the text. The click is 
lost.

So the face hierarchy looks like this:

tool-bar
       |
icon-frame
      /  \
    /      \
icon   text


I would suggest blowing away the feels of the icon and text and do 
all your event handling in icon-frame/feel.
Is there any reason you can't do that ?

that's already what I'm doing. the problem is that the OVER and AWAY 
events seem to be from those faces with FEEL set to none anyway.

You're right, that's a confusing aspect of over and away events in 
the engage function.

Have a play with that and see if you can capture all the state changes 
you need.

I think now you probably have to have feel/engage in both the icon 
and text faces.

Are you sure you need subfaces ? Is the text really essential as 
a separate face ? You might avoid all this confusion with feels by 
using a single face, which can show both an image and text natively, 
or use the draw dialect.

(I suspect you are aiming for a simple specification using existing 
VID styles icon and text. Is that true?)