christopher melen chris_melen@yahoo.com writes:

1. SBCL works best. I had some problems with the listener under

OpenMCL, especially when I tried to change the path (complained that it was 'not of type LIST').

It's no surprise that SBCL works best - it's what most McCLIM hackers use. Also, it has good performance and implements CLOS well, which is important to McCLIM. Clozure CL is also supposed to be good, so I'd be interested in hearing the specifics of the error you got (backtrace?).

2. I have to run it with Apple's X11 - which is not a problem for

me, as I use it frequently, but I was wondering if anyone's got it running without it. I had to set the DISPLAY environment variable in my .bash_profile to 127.0.0.1:0.0. So I have to run it from the terminal or an xterm, not from Emacs Slime (my preferred set-up).

You can set the environment variable for Emacs (M-x setenv) if you want, but anyway, McCLIM is theoretically able to run under Clozure CL/OpenMCL with the Beagle backend, which uses Cocoa. It's not as complete as the CLX backend, though.

I hear Apples X11 server is odd in some ways, which can affect McCLIM, but I do not know the specifics.

3. When an app starts (for instance, the listener, or Gsharp) it

takes a while to 'come alive'. Menus aren't usable for about a minute. After that it's OK, though, and I can restart an app (in the same Lisp session) without issue. I think I've only encountered this problem with SBCL.

It is normal for McCLIM apps to be slightly sluggish at first, because the CLOS caches need to be filled the first time generic functions are called. Successive invocations of the program should start up faster. A pause of an entire minute is highly unusual, however. Which version of SBCL is that?

4. I have also tried to get McClim running on my

Windows box. I can compile it for Clisp (native Cygwin version, haven't tried the Win32 port), but when I try and run the Listener or any of the demos it just hangs (even with Cygwin's X11 running). I have also tried using the Win32 port of SBCL, but for some reason CLX won't compile on that. Might give ACL a go, if I can get ASDF to work properly with it.

How does it hang? Does it take up all available CPU time or block? McCLIM works on CLISP on Unix, so the implementation itself should not be a problem.

4. I am hoping to use McClim to build the gui for my current

project. I am keen to use it because of the fact that it's Lisp all the way through, unlike other Lisp-based gui kits (Ltk, cells-gtk, lispbuilder, for example) which, while perhaps slicker, feel a bit superficial (just wrappers for Tcl/Tk, Gtk, etc.). I have been tempted to fork out for ACL or LispWorks, but then there are licensing issues when it comes to redistributing my application. So I really want to stick with McClim.

That's also one of the reasons I like McCLIM so much. You can use McCLIM to create GUIs that are somewhat similar to "normal" GUIs if you want, but you should realise that it will likely not be a "pretty" GUI unless you implement your own drawing routines for gadgets and panes. The current appearance of the McCLIM CLX backend is not a policy decision, though, so if you can come up with something prettier (the implementation of which should be relatively easy) you're very welcome.