[Caml-list] OCaML, GUI, rapid prototyping

[Caml-list] OCaML, GUI, rapid prototyping

[Valery A.Khamenya]

Hello all,

  I'd like to collect the state-of-art (see P.S.) info on
  GUI-applications created in OCaml. My motivation is to summarize
  what kind of GUI might be created by programmers who decide to stay
  with OCaml. In other words I have the following questions:

  Q1. How advanced might be the GUI in OCaml applications?

  Q2. What are the GUI engines (gtk/fltk/qt/.../?) supported today for
      OCaml?

  Q3. What kind of development framework are available in spirit of
      Delphi/Kylix/Glade?


  Q4. And what are the near plans concerning the issues above?


Please, don't forget to Cc to me  :-)
Thank you.

P.S.

  While trying to answer those questions above I've found that
  links:
    http://set.gmd.de/SET/standard/sE_e.htm
    http://www.cs.cornell.edu/Info/Projects/Ensemble/
    http://diogenes.informatik.unibw-muenchen.de:8080/kahl/HOPS/
    http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/papers/Html/Pict.html
    http://sequence-www.stanford.edu/~arc/pub.html
    http://www.loria.fr/equipes/protheo/SOFTWARES/SPIKE/ ( <-- is available
                                                               but moved)
  from:
    http://caml.inria.fr/users_programs-eng.html
  seems to be no longer available.


-- 
Best regards,
Valery                          mailto: khamenya AT mail DOT ru

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Re: [Caml-list] OCaML, GUI, rapid prototyping

[Richard Jones]

On Thu, Sep 11, 2003 at 06:15:47PM +0200, Valery A.Khamenya wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
>   I'd like to collect the state-of-art (see P.S.) info on
>   GUI-applications created in OCaml. My motivation is to summarize
>   what kind of GUI might be created by programmers who decide to stay
>   with OCaml. In other words I have the following questions:
> 
>   Q1. How advanced might be the GUI in OCaml applications?
>
>   Q2. What are the GUI engines (gtk/fltk/qt/.../?) supported today for
>       OCaml?

We're using Gtk (lablgtk2) to write a medium-sized simulation
application that works across Windows and Linux. We're using the
Gtk-Wimp theme on Windows which gives Gtk a reasonable Windows look
and feel. It's not perfect, but not bad.

Gtk is a very rich and powerful widget set, and we've written custom
widgets (graphs, flow diagrams, dialogs, etc.), all in straight OCaml.

Lablgtk is (to be honest) a bit odd, but once you get used to it,
there'll be almost nothing you can't do that you couldn't do with any
other language or widget set. Most things work identically on Windows
and Unix, so much so that I don't spend much time testing on each
platform separately. There are a few annoying differences in fonts
which I had to wrap into a little library.

We're using OCam'OLE (on Windows) to communicate with Excel -- load
files, run macros, that sort of thing.

We're using NullSoft's NSIS to generate the installer (on Windows).

>   Q3. What kind of development framework are available in spirit of
>       Delphi/Kylix/Glade?

Emacs! You need something else??

Rich.

PS. The lablgtk mailing list is down now?

-- 
Richard Jones. http://www.annexia.org/ http://freshmeat.net/users/rwmj
Merjis Ltd. http://www.merjis.com/ - all your business data are belong to you.
 All new technology is irrelevant until it is taken up by the public.

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Re: [Caml-list] OCaML, GUI, rapid prototyping

[Jacques Garrigue]

From: "Valery A.Khamenya" <khamenya@mail.ru>

I might be biased, but

>   Q1. How advanced might be the GUI in OCaml applications?

As advanced as you wish.
GUI is a lot of dirty work to get ill-conceived toolkits to do what
you really want...

>   Q2. What are the GUI engines (gtk/fltk/qt/.../?) supported today for
>       OCaml?

GTK+ (both 1 and 2), and Tcl/Tk.
Tcl/Tk is included in the distribution.

>   Q3. What kind of development framework are available in spirit of
>       Delphi/Kylix/Glade?

I suppose you mean GUI-builders?
You can use glade in combination with LablGTK, and there are also a
few other options (all for LablGTK).
However, you must realize that Caml programming being much
higher-level in flavour compared to C, once you have a reasonnable
level of proficiency with the toolkit, you work faster by writing the
GUI code yourself.
You can have a look at the following link for LablGTK related  software
  http://wwwfun.kurims.kyoto-u.ac.jp/soft/olabl/lablgtk.html

>   Q4. And what are the near plans concerning the issues above?

Hopefully LablGTK2 should become the main platform.
My only concern is that there is no good native Gtk for MacOSX yet.
(This just means that you have to install Apple's X11 first)

Cheers,

    Jacques Garrigue

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