Re: GNOME development tools; A more United future?

[Jeroen Zwartepoorte <Jeroen xs4all nl>]

Hi,

I have one question: how does this tie in/work with gnome-db?

Jeroen

On 02 Sep 2001 17:53:03 +1200, Andrew Hill wrote:
> Hi Christian and others.
> 
> The probject I work on, with others, is BOND (building object network
> databases)
> which is a development tool and libary for GNOME.  I'd best give a
> description
> of what it does first so here goes. ... 
> 
> 
> Bond seeks to greatly simplify the task of developing database
> applications.  It
> makes GTK widgets dataaware and points them to objects in a postgresql
> database,
> like tables, fields etc.  
> 
> In order to write your application you need to specify a .glade xml file
> and a 
> postgresql database to connect to. The postgrsql database needs to have
> the 
> constraints correctly set up.  BOND will use things like widget names,
> labels, hints, 
> layout and widget types to work out what the data source should be.
> After knowing that it'll deal with all the managing that widget with its
> callbacks etc.
> 
> The nice thing about bond is how quickly it is to write applications,
> normally
> about 95% of your application will work first time and then you just go
> to and
> make some widget names more specific, or add any additional callbacks or
> triggers you may need.  It handles complex relationships and manages
> those
> horrible UI rules and systems which are a bitch to code. Like if user
> clicks there
> and then there then the data in this widget should refresh.
> 
> A typical main function for a programme written using bond would look
> like this. This
> would tell it to load the mainmenu window and initialise all its
> callbacks. From there
> the bond API would handle any other forms that would be opened from
> inside there.
> 
> main(...)
> {
> 	gtk_init(...);
> 	db_init("postgrsql init string");
> 	gtk_startup(...);
> 	dataroof_init();
> 	bond_formshow("mainmenu");
> 
> 	gtk_main();
> 
> 	bond_formclose("mainmenu");
> 	gtk_cleanup();
> }
> 
> I dont want bond to become an annoying tool that takes the all power
> away from the developer,
> the developer still needs to be able to do low level calls on GTK. Bond
> is ment to do you
> all your donkey work but still allow you to get your hands dirty when
> the need arises.
> 
> ...end of rant.
> 
> 
> At the moment I'm working for a 007 release(about 1 month away).  Which
> is a 
> major and complete rewrite from the last 006 release.  006 is a bitch to 
> install and set up and is slow, buggy, and i have lots of other nasty
> things 
> to say about it.  I'm keen to hear peoples ideas on the project so do
> speak up, I've got some cvs snap shots if people are interested.
> 
> I've moved completely away from ORBIT in 007, along with a lot of other
> nasty dependences.  
> This may seem like a bad thing on face value but I was having major
> issues with speed, 
> reliablity and easy of use.  If i was going to use orbit again it would
> just be in the 
> high end API with my C interfaces asewll.  Because bond is a libary I
> havn't spent a great 
> time on looking to get bonobo intergration.  It maybe better suited for
> the applications 
> that are written using bond, or doing a basic interferace to the high
> end API.
> 
> In the long term I see bond been a critical part of gnome, and a libary
> used for developing database applications.  I would like to see a huge
> rich collection
> of applications for both home and businesses that are available for
> gnome.  
> 
> How this may fit in devtools, well how do you see it fitting in?.  Bond
> is a libary
> not a GUI application.  A front end to the libary to aid in developing
> applications
> could be useful.  Maybe intergration with glade, and some better GUI
> debugging tools
> may also be in order.  Like been able to run application and see at run
> time where
> widgets get there data from, and what call backs exist etc.  
> 
> 
> 
> Andru.
> 
> 
> 
> Christian Schaller wrote:
> > 
> > Hi,
> > I am currently redoing the devtools page on gnome.org. The page will
> > from now on focus on highlighting the different development components
> > available to GNOME developers. The page will be similar tot the current
> > GNOME Office pages.
> > (New draft: http://www.linuxrising.com/devtools/, will be moved to
> > http://www.gnome.org/project/devtools as soon as its ready.)
> > 
> > The goal of the page is to increase the synergy effects and progress
> > done on this front. In order to do this I will only profile applications
> > which have developers interested in making sure the part of the package
> > they are working on actually is able to be integrated with others
> > through a clean API, preferably as a bonobo component.
> > 
> > The base for cooperating on this is already the GNOME devtools list
> > where developers from a lot of GNOME devtools projects already
> > participate including developers on gIDE, Anjuta, Glimmer, DevHelp,
> > Glade and more.
> > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-devtools
> > 
> > So request that application authors who are interested in having their
> > application highlighted on the devtools page reply to me with the name
> > of their application(s) and also outline shortly how they long term see
> > their application fiting into a wider development toolchain.
> > I also ask everyone who isn't on the gnome-devtools list to please join
> > it.
> > 
> > Christian
> > 
> > Please when replying to this mail only reply to me AND the devtools list
> > so we don't flood peoples mailboxes more than necessary. This mail goes
> > to the around 15 GNOME development tool related projects and list I
> > found after searching for 30 minutes. I have a feeling there are even
> > more :)
> 
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