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[Gcl-devel] RE: JAPI???


From: Mike Thomas
Subject: [Gcl-devel] RE: JAPI???
Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2003 09:58:14 +1000

Hi Camm.

| Greetings!  What is this JAPI stuff?  I feel it belongs in a different
| directory, like gcl-tk.  Please let me know the motivation behind
| these files.


WHAT IS JAPI AND WHAT ARE THOSE FILES

JAPI is a platform independent graphics library (http://www.japi.de/) and
those files implement a low level binding to its primitives.  JAPI has the
advantage over every other cross platform graphics library I have seen that
it does not require much from the FFI or the programmer to get a nice GUI.

The disadvantage is that it requires a Java runtime (jre or java) to be
present in your executable path.  As that disadvantage is shared with GCL-TK
and JAPI is much easier to work with, I have been doing so to see how it
goes.

Presently I have only tested a few of the primitives.


WHY ARE THOSE FILES IN THE LSP DIRECTORY

Although I am not entirely set on placing it in the "lsp" subdirectory, that
is a convenient place to put it until we rework the build system, as it
requires very little effort and can be turned on and off with the configure
script.  I think that there are advantages to putting library bindings into
the one directory (possibly "lsp"), switching their inclusion into GCL
through the configuration system and putting the binding primitives into
their own packages named systematically by convention, for example
":japi-primitives", ":gl-primitives", ":mpi-primitives" etc.

That way, GCL users can define higher level constructs on the primitives
without having to concern themselves with linking the appropriate libraries
into the image.

Sorry for not communicating earlier about this, but I am trying out ideas at
the moment, and learning about the FFI.

Cheers

Mike Thomas.






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