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From: throop@aurs01.UUCP (Wayne Throop)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl,comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: GUI Perl (was Re: Perl for the Macintosh?)
Message-ID: <59585@aurs01.UUCP>
Date: 18 Feb 91 20:29:08 GMT
References: <9473@dog.ee.lbl.gov> <1991Feb9.011417.18071@NCoast.ORG> <1991Feb11.153023.6339@supernet.dallas.haus.com>
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> cluther@supernet.dallas.haus.com (Clay Luther)
>> allbery@NCoast.ORG (Brandon S. Allbery KB8JRR)

>>(Perl with a GUI interface... the mind boggles.  ;-)
> Actually...we have been tinkering with the idea of writing self-contained X
> widgets and code resources for calling by Perl in order to do just that.

In fact, I am amazed that this has not already been done for Unix, so
that shell scripts can intelligently interact via gadgets, before now.
Even if each gadget needs to be/create/whatever a separate window,
it's still better than almost nothing.

For now, I use a workaround of using "xterm" to create menus,
selection boxes, and so on and on.  Consider, for example, this simple
popup dialog box, in bourne-shell-ese:

    popup_text=`xterm -g 40x2+100+100 -e sh -c 'echo -n "Query: " >/dev/tty
                read answer;echo $answer 1>&3' 3>&1`

I'll leave it as an excersize to interested readers how to hook three
xterms, two awks, and a shell together to give a simple
point-and-shoot interface to the Unix filesystem (that is, select a
file or files upon which to operate in one window (conceptual pane or
gadget), then select a verb (such as "delete" or "display") in a
second, and view output in a third).  I assure one and all it can be
fairly easily done.

The problem, of course, is that the mouse motions needed to use xterms
as selection and/or menu gadgets aren't very optimal... but at least they
are workable for the short term.

Over the longer term, I'm most interested in the upcoming X version of
tooltool by Chuck Musciano (chuck@trantor.harris-atd.com).

( And, of course, if there are other unix-based, shell-programmable
  interfaces to X lurking out there, I'd be interested in hearing
  about them. )

Wayne Throop       ...!mcnc!aurgate!throop