Re: [rgui-dev] project design proposal

[Tom Sawyer]

okay, here's what i divised. i used Yaml for the file format of the interface.

note that
        
        toplevel:

is really just a shorthand for

        container:
                type: toplevel

the most interesting part is probably the event: clauses which define a change 
of attribute based on an action occuring. order: means whether to do that 
event before or after (pre and post) the action's callback executes. the 
value of the statusbar starts out empty and is only filled with a message 
when Ok is activated. i am assuming from your example that the statusbar is 
to hold the resulting message.

this is a very high level of abstraction, although it still is a bit GUI 
centric. in doing this i imagine we will need to go after the GCF (greatest 
common factor) rather than the LCM (least common multiple) between possible 
interfaces. and like you said, the GUI is probably, for the most part, that 
GCF. we shall see just how far we can manage to abstract away from the 
various interfaces, including the GUI.

don't be taken aback by the length of this. Yaml does have shortcuts for 
shorting things onto one-liners, but that's not important. the important 
thing is clearity and explicitness.

now that i think about it, we could probably have other shorthands for 

        container:
                type: x 

and just use

        x:

-transami

#
# Meta-Interface Definition for EclipseCalculator
#
model: eclipse
toplevel:
  name: eclipseform
  container:
    name: menu
    type: menu
    container:
      name: filemenu
      type: menu
      label: File
      action:
        name: save
        label: Save
        callback: eclipse.save
      action:
        name: open
        label: Open
        callback: eclipse.open
      action:
        name: exit
        label: Exit
        callback: eclipse.exit
    container:
      name: helpmenu
      type: menu
      label: Help
      action:
        name: help
        label: Help
        callback: eclipse.help
      action:
        name: about
        label: About
        callback: eclipse.about
  container:
    name: entryframe
    type: frame
    entry:
      name: day
      label: Day
      value: #{Time.now.day}
    entry:
      name: month
      label: Month
      value: #{Time.now.mon}
    entry:
      name: year
      label: Year
      value: #{Time.now.year}
  container:
    name: action
    type: buttonbar
    action:
      name: ok
      label: Ok
      callback: eclipse.action
    action:
      name: cancel
      label: Cancel
      callback: eclipse.exit
  container:
    name: message
    type: statusbar
    value: ''
    event:
      on: eclipseform.action.ok
      order: pre
      value: Calculating...
    event:
      on: eclipseform.action.ok
      order: post
      value: >
                Next eclipse is at day the 
                #{eclipse.day} 
                of #{eclipse.mon},
                #{eclipse.year}.