Hi,
I would like to use mcclim for making applications (exercises in Common Lisp) with sbcl. I looked around on the website. But some things are still not clear to me. So I have some questions about mcclim's status.
Is mcclim built entirely on top of CLX? Is there a gtk backend for clx (other than motif)? Is mcclim in alpha stage?
Thanks for any clarification Jan Brosius
--- Jan Brosius jan.brosius@skynet.be wrote:
Hi,
I would like to use mcclim for making applications (exercises in Common Lisp) with sbcl. I looked around on the website. But some things are still not clear to me. So I have some questions about mcclim's status.
Is mcclim built entirely on top of CLX?
The primary backend is CLX.
Is there a gtk backend for clx (other than motif)?
Um. I think there is come confusion here. CLX IS a backend for McCLIM (or it can be used directly if you want to work at that level.) There is a backend for McCLIM that uses (in part) GTK named gtkairo.
Is mcclim in alpha stage?
Debatable. Certainly applications use it (see Gsharp). That one is probably best answered by the devs.
CY
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Jan Brosius jan.brosius@skynet.be writes:
Is mcclim built entirely on top of CLX?
No, McCLIM (and CLIM in general) is completely device-independent. Currently, the default and best backend for McCLIM is indeed based on CLX, but this is merely because that backend is the oldest, and the one that has received the most work.
Is there a gtk backend for clx (other than motif)?
"Gtk backend for CLX" does not make much sense (and McCLIM does not have a Motif backend at all, though the commercial CLIMs do). There is an experimental backend named "Gtkairo" that blends use of Gtk and Cairo, but it is not yet as stable or full-featured as the CLX backend. It may work for your programs, depending on what you want to do. In general, the drawing primitives work very well with it, but the more obscure CLIM facilities are less well supported.
Is mcclim in alpha stage?
There is no defined stage. Strictly, it is not feature-complete as a CLIM implementation (but pretty close), so it would not be appropriate to call it a beta. On the other hand, while McCLIM is no rock pillar of stability, it is certainly not as unstable as "alpha" might imply.
Troels Henriksen wrote:
"Gtk backend for CLX" does not make much sense (and McCLIM does not have a Motif backend at all, though the commercial CLIMs do). There is an experimental backend named "Gtkairo" that blends use of Gtk and Cairo, but it is not yet as stable or full-featured as the CLX backend. It may work for your programs, depending on what you want to do. In general, the drawing primitives work very well with it, but the more obscure CLIM facilities are less well supported.
If there is a Gtkairo backend for mcclim than I would expect that mcclim uses an ffi e.g. cffi. If so I would like to have some working knowledge of how it is done and what C library one uses. I mean wxcl uses wxWidgets (written in C++), swig to "translate it to cffi and also cffi. But I couldn't find a folder like cffi in the mcclim distribution.
Jan Brosius jan.brosius@skynet.be writes:
If there is a Gtkairo backend for mcclim than I would expect that mcclim uses an ffi e.g. cffi. If so I would like to have some working knowledge of how it is done and what C library one uses.
Yes, Gtkairo uses CFFI. Other backends can use whatever FFI they want (the Beagle backend uses some OpenMCL-specific FFI as far as I know). The Gtkairo backend uses various GTK and Cairo libraries, but I admit that I do not fully know which ones.
I mean wxcl uses wxWidgets (written in C++), swig to "translate it to cffi and also cffi. But I couldn't find a folder like cffi in the mcclim distribution.
No, that's because McCLIM as a whole does not mandate any specific FFI - McCLIM is device-independent, and does not necessarily require the use of FFIs, so any backend that needs to talk to C code needs to do the FFI work itself.
Quoting Jan Brosius (jan.brosius@skynet.be):
If there is a Gtkairo backend for mcclim than I would expect that mcclim uses an ffi e.g. cffi. If so I would like to have some working knowledge of how it is done and what C library one uses. I mean wxcl uses wxWidgets (written in C++), swig to "translate it to cffi and also cffi. But I couldn't find a folder like cffi in the mcclim distribution.
Gtkairo uses CFFI to call GTK+ functions.
The FFI definitions for that are partly hard-written (gtk-ffi.lisp, cairo-ffi.lisp), partly auto-generated (ffi.lisp), and can be found in mcclim/Backends/gtkairo/.
Users are not meant to call those FFI functions directly, and only a small part of GTK+ functionality is used.
If you are looking for complete GTK+ bindings, consider CLG or one of all the other GTK+ bindings available for Common Lisp.
d.
Troels Henriksen wrote:
Jan Brosius jan.brosius@skynet.be writes:
[...]
Is there a gtk backend for clx (other than motif)?
"Gtk backend for CLX" does not make much sense (and McCLIM does not have a Motif backend at all, though the commercial CLIMs do). There is an experimental backend named "Gtkairo" that blends use of Gtk and Cairo, but it is not yet as stable or full-featured as the CLX backend. It may work for your programs, depending on what you want to do. In general, the drawing primitives work very well with it, but the more obscure CLIM facilities are less well supported.
Is mcclim in alpha stage?
There is no defined stage. Strictly, it is not feature-complete as a CLIM implementation (but pretty close), so it would not be appropriate to call it a beta. On the other hand, while McCLIM is no rock pillar of stability, it is certainly not as unstable as "alpha" might imply.
I think it's difficult to answer this because there is a wide variation in how solid different parts of the system might be. If you use parts of the system that you see in use in existing McCLIM applications, you may find it very solid. However, if you unwittingly start using a feature of CLIM that is not used so much in these areas, you may find it incomplete or buggy. To my great sorrow, the last time I was using McCLIM much, I seemed to have a perfect gift for finding the parts of the spec that were not much exercised. At that time, for example, format-graph-from-roots was really only working for trees, and there were serious problems with accepting values for commands with multiple arguments. I have not had an opportunity to use McCLIM in the intervening time, so I don't know the extent to which these areas have improved...
I think that Troels' response wrt gtkairo shows the same dynamic.
I am sorry not to be more helpful,
r
On Jan 13, 2008 5:35 PM, Robert Goldman rpgoldman@real-time.com wrote:
Troels Henriksen wrote:
Jan Brosius jan.brosius@skynet.be writes:
...
Is mcclim in alpha stage?
There is no defined stage.
...
I think it's difficult to answer this because there is a wide variation in how solid different parts of the system might be.
So, if you use the bits people use, you have a better chance of using something solid than if you use the bits people don't use. Of course, if everyone does this progress isn't made, so I urge you to use any part of McClim that appeals to you, and fix the bits that don't measure up (:
JQS
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C Y -
David Lichteblau -
Jan Brosius -
John Q. Splittist -
Robert Goldman -
Troels Henriksen