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1. What is GLayout?1. What is GLayout? | |
** GLayout is a library which will tremendously increase your current VID capabilities. It basically replaces the complete VID layout algorithm by using nested groups of aligned faces all of which can resize. GLayout also adds many hooks and callbacks to the GUI so that you can better control what happens in your styles. **
1.1 Main features:
2. Download | |
2.1 SLiM
Before downloading and using GLayout, you must have the slim.r library manager on your system. You can get more info on it Here!. I suggest following the steps in the slim Quickstart for initial testing.
2.2 Get GLayout on rebol.org
You can view and download the GLayout module from rebol.org Here!
2.3 Get GLayout in a rebol console
You can also easily download the module directly within the rebol console.
Just replace the %/path/to/glayout.r by your actual lib installation path (Probably the directory you placed slim.r in!
write %/path/to/glayout.r read http://www.rebol.org/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/rebol/download-a-script.r?script-name=glayout.r
3. Where are the reference and tutorial docs? | |
The Complete GLayout section of the STEEL web site will be put online sometime in the week of Nov 6th
For now all I can do is put a little information on the recently released GLayout demo app.
4. What's next? | |
Many people have been asking about what are the next things in line to be added to GLayout.
Here is a pretty high-level list of the main things I think are still missing and which can be addressed in the next few weeks.
Anyone wanting to help out or add his current VID styles to GLayout is welcome ! I will be glad to explain, steer and support anyone in the proper direction.
4.1 hide-popup/type
this will allow me to resolve the bug where the menu panes close one popup too many... making it impossible for the popup menu to open a requestor itself.
4.2 Menu Bar
This will simply be a group style which creates a pulldown menu Bar like we are used to in sooo many OSes.
I need this in order to allow several menus to pop up when clicking on one menu item and moving away to the next one. Right now, we must click on each menu item of the main menu bar (popup submenues ARE already automatic though)
4.3 LiquidGL
I am actively working on a GLayout plugin extension called liquidGL which will merge liquid's dataflow engine with GLayout, to make a highly dynamic implicit gui signaling system.
4.4 Hmk design Toolbar
Actually, this is already done :-)
Henrik's toolbar VID style is already imported into GLayout as a GLayout plugin.
I am just waiting to release this plugin to make sure the toolbar's original author and I agree on the form of the distribution (we just don't want to duplicate our efforts!).
4.5 SIMPLE generic skining
I don't really want to start a big system, but being able to change GUI colors and bitmaps on the fly is a valid user concern.
The actual styles will be responsible to react to preset colors and any other facet which will be part of the engine.
As usual a default method will handle 90% of case so adding styles will not mean having to understand much of how the skins work. I will only change the base facets by default.
4.6 Tab pane
This is an easy to implement group style gadget which is next in line to come out of the STEEL workshop.
4.7 Table style
This a big one... There are already a few VID tables out there, but to be really usefull, it must be bug free, selectable and must allow a certain level of programability.
On the other hand, I do not want to add a heavy and complicated to debug style.
So some analysis of current stuff is in order, and if nothing suits my needs, I will have to get my good old 300000 cell a second vertically resizing table style out of the closet and into a decent usable style.
4.8 Tree and finder Browsers
These are also pretty easy to code, they only need to be done properly. If possible, I'd like this to be the same style and allow it to switch from one to the other, to cater to end-user preferences.
5. Current weaknesses: | |
Now that the engine is pretty stable and powerfull, in this new phase of development, I am now finally concentrating on adding better styles and polishing the user experience.
5.1 Styles:
I have to be honnest, right now, GLayout suffers a bit from lack of some of the more complex styles.
But due to the dynamic nature of the layout engine, its sometimes easy to create these new styles on the fly in very short time, based on an assembly of other simpler styles and aligned groups.
5.2 Dialect:
Some of the capabilities of a few of the styles are also still only accessible through the 'WITH block. Although not a limitaion per say, it is more intuitive to use words and values within the dialect itself.
Dialect extension in GLayout is very easy, so just ask for it, and your favorite hidden feature will become prioritized to become dialect enabled.
page last updated: 2-Nov-2006
