1. RE: wrapping wxWindows
> From: jbrown1050 at hotpop.com [mailto:jbrown1050 at hotpop.com]
> Could this be done?
>
> I realize that wxWindows is a C++ lib, so its not directly
> compatible for
> Euphoria.
>
> However, I once considered wrapping Qt for Euphoria (Qt is
> another C++ lib,
> used by such things as Opera and KDE), and I was going to do
> this by cheating.
>
> There is a library, QtC, which wraps the C++ calls to Qt in
> normal C functions,
> which, in turn, can be easily wrapped in Euphoria.
>
> ("control::function(...)" becomes
> "controltype_function(control, ...)" for
> example.)
>
> I was wondering why this hasn't been done for wxWindows, however.
>
> If this approach would work for wxWindows, then that would
> make it wrappable
> in Euphoria.
>
> Can anyone think of a reason why this approach wouldn't work?
I was just playing around with wxWindows a week or so ago (for windows, at
least). I was using a dll version that came from Ray Smith (IIRC). I think
I may have been able to create an instance of a wxObject. There are several
challenges to wrapping this for Eu, at least with the approach that I was
taking (it might be simpler to write a C++ wrapper that exposes everything
as C and recompile).
First, we must deal with name decoration. Using Depedency Walker, I was
able to undecorate the names, and import functions using ordinals. I don't
believe that such a linking method exists for Linux, so you'd probably have
to import decorated names. Using fptr.e, I'm able to call functions by
pointer, so that's not a problem. The v-tables were exported in the dll, so
I could find the virtual functions. It would take some research to figure
out how to overload a virtual function, however (do we need to allocate a
new vtable? how do we communicate this for the new class? overwrite the
function pointer that's there?). Finally, wxWindows works sorta funny
(IMHO). It's going to take a lot of time going through the macros to figure
out what's really going on.
Matt Lewis
2. RE: wrapping wxWindows
Hi jbrown,
This I'm sure can be done, but with a huge amount of work.
David Cuny would be the one to ask specific questions of as he has
wrapped alot of the wxWindows objects into his Basic interpreter
(wxbasic.sourceforge.net).
He has done it in a way that "almost" works automatically.
I had tried a couple of times to do it manually but failed to get
to grids with wxWindows programming.
I got along way down the path of doing the same type of things with
FLTK and the Fox GUI toolkits.
FLTK is C "friendly" which makes things easier (ie. users callbacks
for events - which is easy to wrap in Euphoria callbacks).
The Fox GUI toolkit uses a similiar event loop to wxWindows which
means you have to write a C wrapper before you can connect it to
Euphoria (lots of work).
I'm certain it's all possible but does take alot of work.
When I struggle just to get these libraries compiled I realise that
I'm not prepared to put the huge amount of effort in writting C and C++
code to get the payback for Euphoria.
I think it would be a fantastic project for someone!!!!
I beleive "good" wxWindows support would make Euphoria an excellent
tool to develop cross platform GUI apps with!
Regards,
Ray Smith
http://rays-web.com
> I realize that wxWindows is a C++ lib, so its not directly compatible
> for
> Euphoria.
>
> However, I once considered wrapping Qt for Euphoria (Qt is another C++
> lib,
> used by such things as Opera and KDE), and I was going to do this by
> cheating.
>
> There is a library, QtC, which wraps the C++ calls to Qt in normal C
> functions,
> which, in turn, can be easily wrapped in Euphoria.
>
> ("control::function(...)" becomes "controltype_function(control, ...)"
> for
> example.)
>
> I was wondering why this hasn't been done for wxWindows, however.
>
> If this approach would work for wxWindows, then that would make it
> wrappable
> in Euphoria.
>
> Can anyone think of a reason why this approach wouldn't work?
3. RE: wrapping wxWindows
Matthew Lewis wrote:
> I was just playing around with wxWindows a week or so ago (for windows,
> at
> least). I was using a dll version that came from Ray Smith (IIRC). I
> think
I don't think it was me? (that I can remember anyway)
I have built the DLL version a few times attempting a wxWindows wrapper
but I'm pretty sure I didn't send anything to anyone.
Regards,
Ray Smith
http://rays-web.com
4. RE: wrapping wxWindows
jbrown1050 at hotpop.com wrote:
> I was hoping that I could make a C library, not a C++ library.
>
> Perhaps if I did a 2-step triple C wrap.
>
> wxWindows -> wrapped in plain C, exported as a C++ library.
> C++ wrapper lib -> wrapped again in plain C, but exported as a normal C
> lib this time.
> C wrapper lib -> wraps cleanly in Euphoria.
I "think" the easiest path is to write a C++ library (since wxWindows
is written in C++) but create the "wrapped" routines in a "C friendly"
way (by using extern C{...} ).
A library such as this wrapped in a DLL looks just like a C DLL
(and I assume the same for shared libraries on *nix).
This is the approach I was using for FLTK and FOX and it seemed to
work fine.
Regards,
Ray Smith
http://rays-web.com
