AltME groups: search

Shouldn't be ... both display and layout just generate a bunch of 
view faces at the end of the day. If it's really an issue you can 
always call system/words/layout from within RebGUI for those layouts 
that must be VID generated.

A tablet user asks ... how to enable multiselect without using the 
control key ... he's using tablet in slate mode so no keyboard, and 
the virtual keyboard takes up too much real estate.

How to easily set auto resizing, for simple scenario as - window, 
two group boxes, in each of them area. I try with various LVHW combinations, 
but can't it get working, group-boxes are overlapping with simple 
#HW:


display "just a try" [group-box "1" 100x50 #HW data [] group-box 
"2" 100x50 #HW data []] do-events

Looks like a resizing bug.

I've got about 300 different screens in my application ( apparently 
someone counted ) ...which is a bit of a  cognitive load on the users 
:(

I am trying to use the function keys to replace a mouse click on 
the "Save" button.  But the function keys are  global .... so if 
one defines it to have a specific action for one screen, there's 
bound to be a problem where the wrong definition arises.

So, what I need to do is make the F keys stick to a particular screen, 
rather than being global.

which is a bit of a  cognitive load on the users :(
 

Yes, Qtask has the same problem...  Having looked at many applications 
that have LOTS of tabs, medical, legal, etc. I don't know yet what 
way around it there is.


One idea I have is that you come in to a mostly blank set of screens, 
with a few tabs, and a button that brings up a dialog.
It is a giant menu of things you can ask to be on the screen.

You pick from this, and at LEAST then everything that is there you 
put there.
Also, you can turn everything on quickly as a feature.

And you will always know if you don't see it, it is probably on that 
menu of things.

Graham, I think a lot of measuring devices use this technique with 
soft keys. If you have a device with a fixed set of blank keys next 
to the display, they would likely work as softkeys.

yes... I have an app that works in a similar way. the answer was 
to construct a dialect that describes each screen with well-defined 
parts.

yes... not possible to slap on a dialect if your app is that complex.

Graham - not sure about RebGUI, but VID generates face structures 
at the end anyway. So - I am not sure you can easily make F keys 
local to certain screen. Well, maybe you can, but you would have 
to look how RebGUI handles events underneath. What I disliked about 
some tab styles was that all your tabs are always instantiated, whereas 
I wanted load-as-selected behaviour. That could help a bit in your 
situation.

In VID you can handle F keys by window with the event handler of 
the window. Hope that what you call a screen is a window :-\

Of course, if a window always had an "OK" button function, a "Cancel" 
function and a "Save" function, this would make things somewhat easier.

I'm feeling a little off colour today

Ashley hasn't been on line here since xmas eve ... is he on a rather 
extended holiday??

Anyone using the RebGUI tree widget?  I'd like to use it ... but 
I don't see a way to have a hidden field that could be used to retrieve 
a db record

Pekr/Graham (re group-box resize overlap convo from 13-Jan) ... it's 
a limitation not a bug. The #H and #W directives assume they are 
by themselves in a given row/column.


Instead of ... unview/only face/parent-face/parent-face ... why not 
unview/ony find-window face
 ... performance over coding efficiency.  


Ashley hasn't been on line here since xmas eve ... is he on a rather 
extended holiday

 ... the GFC has forced me to allocate considerable resources elsewhere, 
 but I'm back for the time being.


button is blue. But with over effect, going to green (default?), 
and with press, going pink

 ... the over (theme light) and press (state light) colors are global. 
 118 fixes the problem whereby these states lost your original color 
 override.


We have arrow key navigation of tables.  How can we get the enter 
key to do the action?
 ... add 'table to behaviors/action-on-enter

Any ideas on enhancing the tree widget to have a hidden field we 
can use to access db records?

ie. a db key

forinstance .. in a table, i usually have a hidden field size .001 
so it won't display

that could be a 30 char long uuid and it won't show

Both is good. That's a fairly simple change to tree.r ... if I find 
some time over the week I'll do it.

There's another thing with edit-list.  Unlike a drop-list, you can 
tab into it, and use the down arrow to cause the list to drop, but 
you can't use the keyboard to select a value.  You have to switch 
to using the mouse.

And selecting a particular leaf programmatically?

if you do a hudge work to have to redo it from scratch next week 
that's not fun

how can i add a custom rebface to rebGUI  to make it dynamical know 
the existance of my custom rebface

I'd like a text variant .. eg. a-text for active text which highlites 
on over and returns to its color on away.  I can get the over working 
okay, but the on-away doesn't restore the color.

>> display "" [ table 40x100 options [ "name" left .99 ] data [ "a" 
"b" ] [ face/remove-row 1 ]] do-events
** Script Error: Invalid path value: remove-row
** Where: action
** Near: face/remove-row 1

when you click on a row to remove it

try

>>display "" t:  table 40x100 options [ "name" left .99 ] data [ 
"a" "b" ] [t/remove-row 1 ]] do-events ... (untested)

display "" [ t: table 40x100 options [ "name" left .99 ] data [ "a" 
"b" ] [ t/remove-row 1 ]] do-events

Hi Giuseppe, I'll respond in full to your questions here as I've 
had quite a few emails recently asking similar questions about the 
future of R3 and RebGUI.

As you have created the best GUI solution for REBOL2

 ... Thanks, remember that "best" is in the eye of the beholder though 
 ;) ... RebGUI was created only because VID wasn't up to the task.

I ask to myself why your still not involved in REBOL3 GUI.

 ... Apart from the fact that I cannot give the project the time it 
 requires, the R3 GUI is in far more capable hands than mine. I'm 
 looking forward to it making RebGUI obsolete! ;)


Are you waiting the final VID version to port your great experience 
in this area ?

 ... When the R3 GUI is stable I'll look at how best to port apps 
 from RebGUI to it. I'm thinking either a compatibility layer or an 
 outright script conversion utility. But while we wait for that glorious 
 future (stable R3/GUI SDKs on Windows, Mac and Linux) RebGUI is still 
 the only R2/GUI game in town (IMHO).

display "" [ table 40x100 options [ "name" left .99 ] data [ "a" 
"b" ] [ face/parent-face/remove-row first face/picked ]] do-events

RebGUI was created only because VID wasn't up to the task. damn right 
ashley but nothing guaranty us the VID next set of widget will be 
hum more reliable (to not say more usefull ...) but still VID remain 
 a powerfull things so with our without cool widget set from base 
since VID stay a powerfull base and draw still remains too it's still 
possible to make a set of widgets more hum .. more to feet our taste 
and needs ?

R3 is not for tomorow ( or maybe Carl done some crazy amount of work 
in the night and gets all ready for tomorow morning ???) so rebGUI 
still has a couple of years to go on ^^ and as a matter of fact i 
prefer i good VID /DRAW  system with no widget than lot of widgets 
with a not extendable dialect what makes all the interrest of VID 
is therefor the high flexibility of it and it's relative simplisicity 
and that aspect have to remain and even been enhanced

however main goal of rebGUI was to provide a cool widget enhancement 
library for VID propose a "example" set of widget people want to 
use the most in their software ( well that list of widgets can be 
found in any advanced graphical library such as GTK+ winap32 aqua 
QT WxWindows Tcl/tk etc...)

REbgui has in a background to show to that VID has many lacks (because 
no one really focus his attention only to design it. at least on 
teh VID2 version)  widget and event system could be simplier and 
provide more efficiency (less memory use more widget set ). REbgui 
was done in waste that's my own opinion

Looks like resize does work if the tree is enclosed in a scroll panel.

This isn't strictly a Rebgui question ... but here goes.  I want 
to double click on a word and perform an action.  That action involves 
interacting with some gui elements on the current screen.  Now, there 
is a function 'hilight-text inside the rebgui 'edit object which 
is inside the rebgui-ctx context.  So, I can hook in there with my 
dbl-click function.  But how to make it call my function which is 
defined for each window?

I can create a global dbl-click-edit function, but since the widgets 
have names all made local, I can't effect the changes I want unless 
I make the widget names global as well.

Ashley, how about a refinement for display that opens a window relative 
to the current face ... so like /position

Anyone done a request-calculator requester ?

Actually I was just thinking of allowing users to use a gui to enter 
numbers into fields ...but why not use a calculator requester for 
that?

You could make it a special field so if someone enters a literal 
("12") it doesn't do anything, otherwise ("10+2") it parses and evaluates 
it (perhaps putting "ERR!" in the field if the expression couldn't 
be evaluated).

The main thing I wanted was a way to input numbers using the mouse 
which is easy enough using a calculator layout.

Puzzle time .... I have this


add2script: has [ t1 ] [
    display/parent "test" [

        t1: table 40x40 options [ "item" left .99 ] data [ "one" ]
        on-click [
            either value? 't1 [
                alert first t1/selected
            ][
                alert "t1 has no value!"
            ]
        ]
    ]
]


Now if this is invoked by single-click on an element in a table, 
it's fine.  If I invoke by double-click on the table to invoke, it 
 gives the error.   If I remove the single click action, and allow 
it to be invoked on double click, then it is also fine.

Ok, I seem to have fixed the issue.  Changed my add2script to a closure 
from a function and no more errors.

Anyway, this looks very promising at solving a lot of Rebgui issues 
I've had over the last few years... where I've clicked on a table 
row and the on-click function has collapsed because the face/selected 
path is not present.

I'd still like to understand and fix the base problem ... what do 
you mean by changing a function to a closure?

I got the idea to try this since somehow the local context was being 
clobbered.  So, creating a new context each time does solve the problem.

Just did some checking on other functions that are invoked normally 
with a single click on a table row ... and so far they all have the 
same problem.  double click corrupts their local context.

If you use the left hand table, and do a double click, then the "show" 
button will produce the same output in both windows.  Change it to 
a closure on the right hand table, and the "show" button now works 
correctly.

Whereabouts is the color information for a button stored?  face/color 
is none so it gets set to none after the button is drawn.

I see I have altered the display.r a little


foreach window view*/screen-face/pane [if title = window/text [return 
none]] ;; GC - always return a value

instead of using 'exit

Looks like this is the case... a print statement after this confirms 
the layout function is called twice on a double click.

a print statement after this confirms the layout function is called 
twice on a double click

 ... as per documentation ( http://www.dobeash.com/RebGUI/user-guide.html#section-3.2.3
 ) "Every on-dbl-click event is preceded by an on-click event, as 
 shown in the following example: ..." But, the real problem here (as 
 you've discovered) is that the method for checking window uniqueness 
 relies upon a [title] string that only manifests *after* a layout 
 is substantiated. I suppose RebGUI could manage its own window title 
 cache, but then you introduce another point of failure (if the cache 
 gets out of sync with view*/screen-face/pane). I wonder if putting 
 a small wait value *before* the current title string test would "fix" 
 the problem (i.e. give the preceeding layout sufficient time to substantiate)?

I understand that a dbl-click always produces a single click action, 
but why do we get two windows popping up on  double click?

Perhaps view needs a way to call a callback after it has substantiated 
the new window ...

puting a wait  0.1 before the window title check seems to fix it 
for me.

Except my application no longer works ... even with a wait as small 
as 0.001

I am trying to adapt Cyphre's old grid to recent RebGUI requirements. 
I got myself past color adaptation, so actually I can get it displayed, 
internally it returns correctly API function results, but I need 
to adapt to event handling. I am facing two problems:

- editing, double-click etc do not work
- during some actions as resizing I get following error:

** Script Error: action has no refinement called on-click
** Where: set-data
** Near: face/action/on-click face


I looked into: help ctx-rebgui/widgets/grid/action, but those funcs 
are not set. Is there any need to set those function for particular 
widget? I looked at some other styles as e.g. button, but button 
is not using its face/action/on-click either, so I am a bit confused 
....

I seem to have a grid.r in my distro.

The problem with the grid widget was that it relied on custom changes 
in rebgui-edit.r (i.e. it wasn't self-contained) and it was just 
too big to easily "grok" (and hence port). A good grid widget should 
have as few features/options as possible IMHO (i.e. get something 
that handles the text-only 80% case before worrying about more complex 
sub-widget support).

I'll try to talk to Cyphre, but not sure how deep the changes would 
have to be. If it would require a rewrite, then I am not ready to 
pay for it once again ...

rebgui-ctx.r >> 

system/view/screen-face/feel: none	; kill global events system (used 
by 'insert-event-func) 


the reason why area-tc will not be adapated to rebgui until ashley 
explain me how to map custom events for a custom face

I guess Ashley wants to place Rebgui into a state of closure and 
move on.

I'm open to suggestions ... and if someone could setup an account 
and give me a 101 intro on how to use/access it I'll upload the latest 
source there and repoint my site links to it. Thanks.

CureCode is just for issue/wishes tracking. Btw, the source code 
for CC is available, anyone can set it's own CC instance online (it 
needs some installation documentation). I'd like to work on a trac-like 
tool with SVN integration, thought.

I've created the rebgui project on codeplex.com and will have a go 
at uploading the sources I have.

Any subversion experts out there?  I tried to relocate my copy to 
the new site, but get a UUID mismatch.  The new repository  UUID 
doesn't match the existing one on my local copy, and presumably gets 
created when I created the new projecct.

Ok, I hacked it this way ... I created a new directory and checked 
out from the new repository.  Then I copied all the files from my 
local copy to the new directory but deleted all the svn directories. 
 I then committed all these files .. and it says it created a 116 
build ... I think it's supposed to be 118 :(

I then published the project http://rebgui.codeplex.com/

Ashley, this is what I think you should do ..  after signing up as 
a contributor, checkout the repository I uploaded.  Then copy all 
your source files over the ones in this new checkout, and then commit. 
 That should give us the latest.

codeplex has a source code browser and issue tracker.

Well, the build that's up there is 118, so I just synced against 
that. I'll have a play with this over the weekend (I've got a few 
changes to upload).

It was a recent change, don't remember when it happened exactly.

And if you sql thingy returns a block .. you don't need the extra 
[ ]

Graham and Izkata, thanks for the help.  But I must be misunderstanding 
something, as it is still not working. Here is what I have:

CONNECT/create/flat %cl.db

if error? err: try [
	SQL "select * from projects"
][
	er: disarm err
	if find er/arg1 "no such table" [

  SQL "create table projects (Priority, ProjectName, ExchangeRate, 
  Objectives, Deliverables)"
	]
]

do show-cc: make function! [] [
	display "CRITICAL LINKS Version 1.0.0" compose/only/deep [
		;image %chain.jpg
		return

  group-box "Critical Chain and Theory of Constraints principles" #W 
  data [

   text "1. REMEMBER YOUR PURPOSE" font [color: blue size: 26 shadow: 
   1x1]
			return
			;bar
			;return

   text "2. Free Up Your Major Constraint" font [color: red size: 20 
   shadow: none]
			return

   text "3, Focus on one project at a time---don't multi-task." font 
   [color: black size: 12 shadow: none]
		]
		at 103x14
		image %critical-chain.jpg 30x6
		at 133x2
		group-box "Redeem the Time" #W data [
			after 2
			label "   System Clock Time:" my-time:    text 28x7 "0:00:00"
			return
			bar
			return
			label "Average session time:" my-session: text 28x7 "0:00:00" 
		]
		return


  ;******************************************************************
		tab-panel #HWLV data [

                           ;******************************************************************
			"Projects" [
				label "Project Name:" ProjectName: field  141x5 

    label "Priority:" Priority: drop-list 30 #W "1" data ["1" "2" "3" 
    "4" "5" "6" "7" "8" "9" "10"] 10x5
				return
				label "Objectives:" 
				pad 131
				label "Exchange Rate" ExchangeRate: field 20x5
				return
				Objectives: area 200x10 
				return
				label "Deliverables:" 
				return
				Deliverables: area 200x10
				return
				label "Current Projects:"
				return

    current-projects: table (tab-size + 80x35) #HWLV options ["Priority" 
    right .03 "ProjectName" left .2 "ExchangeRate" left .2 "Objectives" 
    left .3 "Deliverables" left .1] data [(SQL "select * from projects")]
				return

                                                     button "Save" [

                     SQL reduce ["insert into projects values (?,?,?,?,?)" Priority/text 
                     ProjectName/text ExchangeRate/text Objectives/text Deliverables/text]
				    current-projects/redraw
			              ]
                                                      pad 20

                                                      radio-group 60x5 data [1 "Add" "Edit"]
				pad 20
				button "Quit" [quit]
                                         ]

Ah, I see. What you need is a new method, on-mouse-focus, which would 
ignore keyboard focus changes?

well, I mean I know it is coming from rebgui-edit.r and the 'into-widget 
function which has a recursive find ....

Basically a table with focus, and the only widget inside a panel 
will cause a stack overflow as it tries to tab out looking for the 
next widget that can accept focus.

It would also be good to be able to tab into a table ... if that's 
feasible.

I don't mind where the source resides, as long as:

	a) It doesn't cost me anything
	b) It's accessable via standard SVN clients
	c) It's simple


Jamie very kindly sponsored the first 3 years of hosting on geekisp, 
and when that ceased Graham created a project on CodePlex (which 
I assume offers free hosting?). That seems to be working OK so far, 
but I'm happy to move across to Qtask if it meets above three source 
hosting requirements.

Uploaded build 120 which addresses the stack-overflow issue (and 
as a by-product drastically cuts the number of calls to next-field/back-field 
when tabbing) ... please test.


I'll also echo Graham's call for issue tracker submissions, as I'm 
now prioritzing fixes based on what's in there.

Still get a stack overflow with my test case .. http://rebgui.codeplex.com/WorkItem/View.aspx?WorkItemId=23092

Pekr, it cost $5 a month on geekisp.  But codeplex is better .. as 
it is free, and it is much easier for anyone to join, and add comments. 
 However i miss the diff that geekisp had ... unless it is on codeplex 
as well somewhere.

I had a trac also on geekisp, but it was plagued by trac spam, and 
the site owner wasn't willing at that time to upgrade the trac to 
block spam.  So the only way to stop spam was to block all comments 
.. so I abandoned it.

Uploaded build 121 with a completely rewritten tabbing system. Tabbing 
into/out of tables and text-lists is now supported (you need to copy 
new behavior/tabbed and behavior/cyclic values across into %ui.dat). 
Will add remaining widgets next build plus ability to exit a cyclic 
widget (e.g. press a key to exit a group-box). What keystroke/combo 
do folks want to map the later functionality to?

Yes, but make sure you use the updated versions of both %ctx-rebgui-edit.r 
and %set-focus.r. I've also uploaded build 122 to correct a typo 
in back-field.


With regards to the question as to "what key should escape from cyclic", 
I've come to the conclusion that the best way of handling this is 
to just "tab through" cyclic widgets, so:

	f1: field
	panel data [f2: field f3: field]
	f4: field

would tab as f1, f2, f3, f4, f1, etc. tab-panel would operate as:

	f1: field

 tab-panel data ["a" [f2: field f3: field] "b" [f4: field f5: field]]
	f6: field

with a tab sequence of f1, f2, f3, f4, f5, f6, f1, etc


This way we don't have to worry about what keystrokes to change tabs 
or exit grouping widgets. What do you think?

Excellent ... at present I have to trap enter on the last field of 
a panel to set focus to the next panel.

The tabing changes are still a WIP, it'll take a couple of builds 
to get 100% ... but at least I can grok it now!

re: list/tree missing ... a half-implemented change that I had to 
pull out several builds ago.

Uploaded build 123 with tab-thru implemented as described above (except 
that tab-panel doesn't cycle each tab). Also fixed initial text case 
(stack overflow) and a long-standing text-list bug (no cursor control 
when select-row used).

If I have tree data like this [ A [  B B B ] ]


how can I tell which of the B's that I am clicking on?  Do we need 
some type of index or picked?

You need a unique id, like the index.

Ashley I think we discussed this before .. is there a way to have 
a hidden id so we have both a display element in the tree, and a 
hidden id.

Yes and yes ... but the tree widget really needs to be totally rewritten 
to support that.


If I have tree data like this [ A [  B B B ] ] ...how can I tell 
which of the B's that I am clicking on?

 Isn't this the same issue with drop-lists, edit-lists, text-lists, 
 tables, radio-groups and check-groups? In what case does it make 
 sense to have user options (text strings) that appear identical but 
 have different "real" ID's behind the scenes?

The tree data could be in the form [ A [ B [p] B [q r] B [s t u] 
]

and so the user could differentiate between the different B's by 
examining their contents.

At present a block next to an element indicates a further nesting 
of the tree

Here's a movie to show what the effect is.  Basically I am opening 
up an XML file, turning it into a REBOL object and browsing it.
http://screencast.com/t/5K3dkL3Y7

Now, yes I could use the CCRDataObjectID to index into the object 
... but that would not look intuitive for a tree choice.