Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 21:46:34 +0900 (JST)
Message-Id: <20060420.214634.130239652.garrigue at math.nagoya-u.ac.jp>
To: erikd at mega-nerd.com
Cc: lablgtk at math.nagoya-u.ac.jp
Subject: Re: Low level lablgtk2 hacking
From: Jacques Garrigue <garrigue at math.nagoya-u.ac.jp>
In-Reply-To: <20060420223639.3fdae084.erikd at mega-nerd.com>
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From: Erik de Castro Lopo <erikd at mega-nerd.com>

> I'm finding lablgtk2 a real struggle. I thought about maybe doing
> the GUI in C and the data processing in Ocaml. After banging my head
> against lablgtk2 for over a week, it took me about 8 hours to get 
> all the GUI elements I need working in C/GTK+.
> 
> I then spent some time trying to figure out how to hook up the C GUI
> and the Ocaml data processing. That proved too difficult.
> 
> I'm now back banging my head on the Ocaml version of the GUI and working
> on the C version has definitely helped but there are still some things
> I haven't figure out. I suppose I need to suffer some more pain :-).

The need to understand two layers simultaneously may indeed be
difficult at times. LablGTK tries to be both close enough to GTK+ so
that the original documentation is still relevant, but simultanesouly
to provide more type-safety and a more regular API (the C
GTK+ API is very strange, with functions setting a bunch of somehow
related parameters simultaneously, and various conventions to get
default behavior.)

You could also try using glade. If the interface is simple enough, it
could ease the building a lot, while letting you control everything
from ocaml.

Jacques