Agile Cross-Platform GUI Development with wxPerl

wxPerl
Agile Cross-Platform GUI Development
(What I had to Learn the Hard Way)

Eric Wilhelm
Scratch Computing
http://scratchcomputing.com

wxPerl
bindings for wxWidgets GUI toolkit
●

multi-platform
●

native widgets
●

object-oriented
●

event driven
●

wxWidgets platforms
Win32
–

Mac OS X
–

GTK+
–

X11
–

Motif
–

WinCE
–

and more
–

Why Desktop Apps?
local machine resources
●

large files
–

soundcard
–

cpu
–

private data
●

encryption
●

airplanes
●

Why Perl?
freedom from
●

static code
–

compilers
–

quot;cross-platform reinvention of string
–
librariesquot;
easier reuse
●

common (e.g. company-wide) modular
–
code
web apps
–

command-line apps
–

The “Wx” distribution (aka
wxPerl)
wraps wxWidgets in XS and some Perl
●

332K tarball
●

breakdown:
●

  xs:          ~21680 (57.42%)
  perl:          8685 (23.00%)
  cpp:           7395 (19.58%)
  xsp:          ~1662
note: SLOCCOUNT doesn't really speak XS

but very little documentation
●

Compare to WxGTK
(i.e. core+gtk port)

6.9M of C++ !
●
20x21k

cpp:         416710 (77.09%)
ansic:       112754 (20.86%)
sh:           10026 (1.85%)
python:         645 (0.12%)
lex:            194 (0.04%)
yacc:           128 (0.02%)
pascal:          74 (0.01%)
lisp:             6 (0.00%)
generated using David A. Wheeler's 'SLOCCount'

dotReader
open-source e-book reader in Perl

read, annotate, and search books
●

browse the web, send mail, etc
●

shared annotations
●

online/offline network fun
–

DRM (makes publishers happy)
●

flexible, environment-agnostic architecture
●

open source
●

plugins, plugins, plugins
●

dotReader details
today's raw numbers (Jun. 25th, 2007)
●

13K SLOC
98 modules + ~1200 line Build subclass
drop-in distributions
●

linux/qdos - PAR
–

mac - PerlWrapper + ExtUtils::MacMaker
–

embedded html widgets
●

IE (activeX)
–

Webkit
–

Mozilla
–

Getting Started with wxPerl
Finding Documentation
wxPerl specific
●

a slow wiki (somebody please make a US
–
mirror)
not much pod
–

some perlmonks stuff
–

demo directory
–

C++ documentation
●

C++ examples
●

wxGlade
●

Cross-platform Development
(aka fun with vnc)

svk and working copy on linux workstation
●

more and better tools
–

80% or more development is command-line
–

tests
●

● small utilities

● good discipline

● good for architecture

rsync+fam
●

rdesktop/vnc to windows+cygwin
●

vnc to mac
●

Cross-platform Builds
automate
●

automate
●

automate
●

Module::Build
●

CPDK + remote ssh automation
●

nightly builds
●

cross-platform repackaging from linux
●

Installation
(aka fun with make/nmake/bake/shake/quake)

Linux
●

debian (sarge, etch)
–

Windows
●

camelpack + sourceforge PPMs
–

ExtUtils::FakeConfig
●

Strawberry
–

Mac
●

xcode
–

cpan
–

BAD
code generation and why it is (maybe) a good idea

XRC (speed?)
●

segregate generated code
●

have a consistent environment
●

windows vs linux, glade versions
–

use version control!
●

use subversion
–

have to make it be valid (strict) Perl
●

stupid regular expressions do the trick
–

Getting Past Getting Started
copy and paste is evil
●

strive for deep clarity, not superficial
●

don't ape glade
●

don't ape C++
●

don't even ape the examples
●

Leaving “Getting Started”
Way Behind
modularity
●

subclassing
●

traits
●

CMT / POE for responsiveness
●

subprocesses
●

discipline
●

as always, but particularly because we don't
–
have “best practices” in this realm yet

Eliminating Tabular Code
  EVT_MENU( $self, 5007, sub {$_[0]>activate_sidebar($_[1])});
  EVT_MENU( $self, 5011, sub {$_[0]>activate_reader($_[1])});
  ...
  my $acc_table = Wx::AcceleratorTable>new(
    [0,             WXK_F2,   5007, ], # activate sidebar
    [0,             WXK_F3,   5011, ], # activate widget
    ...
  );
  $self>SetAcceleratorTable($acc_table);

my $acc_table = Wx::AcceleratorTable>new(
  map({$self>_accel(@$_)}
    ['F2',     sub {$_[0]>activate_sidebar($_[1]);}],
    ['F3',     sub {$_[0]>activate_reader($_[1]); }],
    ...
  ),
);
$self>SetAcceleratorTable($acc_table);

needs Perlin'
...
if($stroke =~ s/^(.*)+//) {
  my $mk = 'wxACCEL_' . $1;
  Wx>can($mk) or croak(quot;cannot find modifier key $mkquot;);
  $mod = Wx>$mk;
}
...
if($kl > 1) {
  my $key_const = 'WXK_' . $key;
  Wx>can($key_const) or croak(quot;cannot find keyquot;);
  $key = Wx>$key_const;
}
else {
  # it's a letter
  $key = ord(uc($key));
}

my $id = Wx::NewId;
Wx::Event::EVT_MENU($self, $id, $subref);
return([$mod, $key, $id]);

More Perlification
can() doesn't work right
●

wxPerl::Constructors
●

wxPerl::Styles
●

wxPerl::Lay_er_outer ???
●

What we really want is a
better wxGlade?
stealing ideas from smalltalk
●

(without losing unixness)
–

named objects and accessors
●

DSL / YAML
●

read + write and in-process dynamicism
●

procedural / config-integration
●

and/or code-snippet insertion?
●

Other Thoughts
menu introspection
● (WxPerl::MenuMaker)

event driven OOP
●

break into small pieces (e.g.
–
backend_file_open)
callbacks
●

closures
–

method calls
–

NOT &subname, please
–

accessors
●

Needs more Perlin' -- WxPerl/foo.pm
●

Wx::Perl/wxPerl Modules on
CPAN
wxPerl::Constructors
●

wxPerl::Styles
●

Wx::Perl::Throbber
●

Wx::Perl::ProcessStream
●

Wx::Perl::Imagick
●

Wx::TreeListCtrl
●

Browser Widgets
wxMozilla / Wx::Mozilla
●

my eyes are bleeding!
–

Wx::WebKit
●

Wx::ActiveX
●

move along, nothing to see here
–

wxWebCore / Wx::WebCore
●

Apple's Objective-C experiment (take 2)
–

cross-platform
–

“The Future”
–

Logger
Log::Log4perl
●

dynamically configurable
–

init_and_watch
–

SIGHUP
–

insanely configurable
●

5 levels
–

any depth of 'class' hierarchy
–

levels are even implicit classes
–

don't get carried away here
–

wrap it
not
●

$logger = Log::Log4perl>get_logger('blahblahblah');
$logger>debug('foo');

just returns a singleton, so:
●

use dtRdr::Logger;
L - logging in caller() package
–

L>debug('foo');
RL - arbitrary logging
–

trapping
●

$SIG{__WARN__}, logging to file
–

trapping $SIG{__DIE__} (popup)
–

Testing
./Build test
●

standard tests
●

300 lines of custom test-support code
–

3200 5400 lines of regular tests
–

only 400 600 of that is gui
–

t/location   1
t             5
t/logger     2
t/_gui        9
t/multitask  3
t/annotation  8
t/plugins    3
t/book       34
t/range      1
t/config      4
t/search     3
t/_sync       5
t/toc        5
t/history     3
t/user       1
t/library     3

Building
make a custom Module::Build class
●

(not with a HEREdoc)
–

Custom targets
●

./Build par
–

./Build starter_data
–

./Build books
–

./Build binpush
–

./Build bindistribute
–

Testing
./Build testall
●

'test', 'testsync', and 'testgui'
–

./Build testgui
●

is t/_gui/*.gt + Module::Build hack
–

Packaging and Deployment
Windows and Linux
●

PAR
–

(Wx::ActiveX hack)
●

bundle the dlls, etc -- no dependencies for
●

user
a bit slow to rebuild
●

startup speed needs work here
●

Mac
●

needs an AppBundle
–

PerlWrapper (Mac)
wxPerl (appbundle)
●

required to even get a working GUI
–

compiled with xcode, resource file, etc
–

automated tests work fine, but no focus
–
before click
PerlWrapper
●

a perl interpreter embedded in a compiled C
–
app
allows quot;open myAppquot; from command-line
–

ExtUtils::MacMaker
●

uh, no I don't run xcode on dos and linux
–

No really! Testing
./Build testgui
●

outside-in
●

X11::GUITest
–

Win32::GuiTest
–

inside-out
●

EVT_IDLE
–

Wx::Timer
–

DISPLAY=localhost:3 ./Build testall
–

Manual Testing
just hacks:
●

Ctrl+Shift+F5 does Module::Refresh
–

F7 quick window resize (to see console)
–

production stuff
●

Ctrl+L activate library pane
–

F2/F3 focus switch
–

command-line options or parameters
●

./run test_packages/foo/book.xml
–

dual-purpose tests
●

perl -Ilib t/_gui/note_editor.gt foo
–

Acceptance Tests
ala data-driven testing
●

scripted manual verifications
●

automate actions as much as possible
●

still need better GUI test frameworks
●

Thanks
scratchcomputing.com
●

wxperl.sourceforge.net
●

dotreader.com
●

Agile Cross-Platform GUI Development with wxPerl

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