Re: fltk-Octave on cygwin

[Javier Fernández]

address@hidden wrote:
> Am Donnerstag, 12. August 2010, 20:07:20 schrieb fork:
> > florence.renalier <florence.renalier <at> laposte.net> writes:
> > > Dear all,
> > > I am using Octave, installed from Cygwin (on Windows XP). After some
> > > research on the Internet, I understoood one of the best ways to include
> > > GUIs in Octave (in order to create custom GUIs) is to use flkt-Octave
> > > (Am I right ??).
> >
> > fltk is a library for plotting graphics (a replacement for gnuplot), not
> > interactive GUI's (like popping up dialog boxes and asking for input). So,
> > no, you aren't quite right.
> >
> > I am not sure how to address the rest of your compilation issues, but they
> > might be moot since fltk is not going to do what you want.
> >
> > Zenity is probably the best you are going do for GUI interaction, and I
> > suggest you look into that.  Octave doesn't support Matlab style GUI
> > programming, so far as I know.
>
> I think there is a misunderstanding, you are speaking about the backend fltk, 
> which is not for gui's but for plotting. fltk-octave was a gui project for 
> octave. It went the same way as many other such projects. After a while it was 
> unmaintained or unfinished.
>
> It will be a lot of (maybe wasted) work to make fltk-octave work again.
>
> If you want to build sophisticated gui with callback from and to octave use 
> the java package from octave forge and interact with java (I use that) or have 
> a look at the pytave python bindings which are maintained and look promising 
> (though I do not use them).
>
> - mh


I also thought fltk was related to GUIs, and was waiting for news on 
"text objects", which apparently was the missing item to make it usable. 
Thanks for clearing up the misunderstanding.

I think I was also confused with another java package called jhandles
http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/FAQ.html#MATLAB-compatibility
> 10 Porting programs from Matlab to Octave
> GUI: There are no Matlab compatible GUI functions. There are a number of 
> bindings from Octave to Tcl/Tk, Vtk and zenity included in the Octave Forge 
> project (http://octave.sourceforge.net) for example that can be used for a GUI, 
> but these are not Matlab compatible. Work on a matlab compatiable GUI is in an 
> alpha stage in the JHandles package 
> (http://octave.sourceforge.net/jhandles/index.html). This might be an issue if 
> you intend to exchange Octave code with Matlab users.

I cannot follow the JHandles link to Octave-Forge. Has it moved elsewhere?
http://www.google.com/search?q=octave+jhandles
The windows version of Octave included it as of March 2010
http://wiki.octave.org/wiki.pl?OctaveForWindows
JHandles appears next to java, but I'm missing it in the Octave-Forge web.

The Octave-forge java package is this one?
http://octave.sourceforge.net/java/index.html
The function reference section is short
http://octave.sourceforge.net/java/overview.html

Is there any demo on the simplest GUI with that package? Something 
similar to the zenity snippet we recently saw?
http://www-old.cae.wisc.edu/pipermail/help-octave/2010-August/021146.html

Now I see the zenity package, I assume the snippet could be translated 
to the zenity Octave-forge package, using the zenity_list function
http://octave.sourceforge.net/zenity/index.html
http://octave.sourceforge.net/zenity/overview.html
http://octave.sourceforge.net/zenity/function/zenity_list.html
or simply used as-is, as long as zenity is installed.

The TCL bindings mentioned in the FAQ are these?
http://octave.sourceforge.net/tcl-octave/index.html
http://octave.sourceforge.net/tcl-octave/overview.html
Can they be used to make a simple GUI? I wouldn't have guessed it from 
the function list.

I cannot find the Vtk bindings. Are they useful for making GUIs?

-javier