Re: GUI work (was: Graphical help browser)

[John Swensen]

On Nov 25, 2008, at 2:27 PM, Søren Hauberg wrote:

> tir, 25 11 2008 kl. 14:11 -0500, skrev John Swensen:
> > 4) Syntax-highlighting editor (50% : there are still some bugs and
> > debugging isn't incorporated yet.  I would also like better emacs
> > keybindings, search capability, code completion, blah, blah blah, but
> > that is a ways off)
>
> Are you implementing your own editor or are you embedding some other
> editor? How much communication has to happen between an editor and
> Octave? I can think of the following two things that should be  
> possible
>
> 1) You should be able to set debug break points, and step through the
> code from the editor.
>
> 2) You should be able to send part of (or the entire) file you working
> on to Octave.
>
> Can't stuff like this be implemented by having some inter-process
> communication in Octave (like D-Bus). You would have to extend an  
> editor
> to talk to Octave through this inter-process channel (most editors
> support plugins).
>
> Anyway, I haven't looked at your work, so I'm asking out of ignorance.
>
> Søren

As indicated in the email to JWE, I am using GtkSourceView to  
implement the hard parts of the editor.  The rest of it is just  
managing buffers and opening files and such.

As far as I am concerned, the two things you mentioned plus hover to  
view variables are the only interaction between the editor and Octave  
and they are handled as follows:

1) Setting, clearing, and modifying breakpoints are handled through  
the octave_server class.
2) Just as with the command history, when executing highlighted code  
from the editor, I simply send it to the VTE widget as if someone had  
typed it in.
3) Requesting a variable for displaying when the mouse hovers over a  
variable name in the editor is also handled by octave_server.  Of  
course this feature only makes sense after having hit a breakpoint.

At the present time, I see no other interactions between the editor  
and Octave, but if you see others let me know.

John Swensen