• fxruby-enhancement
  • Showcase
  • Introduction
  • Installation
  • Documentation
    • In General
      • The use of {…} vs do…end to define your blocks
    • Execution Phases of fxruby-enhancement
      • Declarative
      • FXRuby Instantiation
      • FOX Toolkit instantiation
    • Events from other Threads
      • The Queue_Ding Queues
        • Enhancement.ingress
        • Enhancement.egress
    • Reusable components and dynamic creation, and the ‘reuse’ flag
    • API & DSL
      • ref(), refc() and tagging your objects
      • as – adding new child components to already declared ones
      • fox_component and fox_instance
      • fx_app
      • fx_chart – NOT IMPLEMENTED YET! STILL IN DEVELOPMENT!
        • Data Format and Labeling – NOT IMPLEMENTED YET!
      • fx_data_target
      • fx_dc
      • instance
      • ingress_handler
      • #starten and #stoppen with resuable components
      • deferred_setup
      • Mapping between fx_* declarations and the FX* FXRuby objects
      • binding.fx
    • Examples
      • Hello World example (full) the Enhancement Way
      • Hello World the old fxruby way:
      • Bouncing Ball example (full):
      • Bouncing Ball the old fxruby way:
      • DataTarget Example
  • Release Notes
  • Known Issues
  • Contributing to fxruby-enhancement
  • Copyright and Licensing
  • The Junkyard / Scratchpad
    • JUNKYARD Genesis of the meta-meta programming, whereby brain goes boom
    • JUNKYARD Resuable components and data targets
      • JUNKYARD Data Targets
    • JUNKYARD Subtle Ruby Bug detected. (chart.rb) Ruby 2.4.0
    • JUNKYARD ‘as’ execution issue DEBUGGING CODE
    • SCRATCHPAD FXDCWindow
    • JUNKYARD Thoughs on doing the layout
      • JUNKYARD Superior layout calculations
      • JUNKYARD Debug layout dump

• On the left: Enhancement version of hello world.
• On the right: FXRuby version.

Screenshot	Code Links
	Hello World
	Dialog Box
	Bounce
	Scribble
	Chart
	RubyNEAT Panel

The fxruby library is an excellent wrapper for the FOX Toolkit. However, it reflects the C++-ness of FOX, rather than being more Ruby-like. As such, creating composed objects with it tends to be rather cumbersome, given its C++ roots. For every new component you create with fxruby, you are handed back a reference to that object, which you’ll need to store somewhere. And then all the subsequent child objects will need to be passed pointers to the parent objects.

So, if you need to redo a layout, it becomes a messy exercise.

fxruby-enhancement makes this a snap to do. You simply declare your GUI arrangement in a nested fashion. fxruby-enhancement will take care of passing parents to the nested children, and other issues as well. You can now focus on creating your great GUI layout that you can change on the fly without much fuss and bother.

fxruby-enhancement (also referred to as “Enhancement”) is basically a DSL of sorts, and every effort has been taken to make it intuitive to use. Once you get the hang of it, you should be able to look at the FXRuby API documentation and infer the DSL construct for fxruby-enhancement. Please also see the many examples.

Enhancement basically leverages Ruby’s singleton feature, and eliminates the need to “subclass” the FXRuby objects and the like. In fact, you might even consider this Enhancement’s own “paradigm” for doing GUI programming.

Your input and criticisms are more than welcome. Feel free to raise issues on GitHub. I have not anticipated all the ways someone might try to use Enhancement. I am making heavy use of Enhancement in my RubyNEAT project – which is why I created it.

Donations are appreciated.

Requirements: You must have Fox16 installed on your system. Depending on your operating system, the details will vary. And currently on MacOSX you will also need to install X-Windows. Here, we link you to the details provided by FXRuby for your particular environment:

OS Details

To install the gem from commandline:

gem install fxruby-enhancement

In your Gemfile:

gem "fxruby-enhancement", "~> 0"

fxruby-enhacement depends on fxruby version 1.6, and will automatically include it. However fxruby has a c-extension that must compile properly on your system. Normally, this is not a concern, but it is something to be aware of.

fxruby-enhancement (which we will refer to as “Enhancement” from time to time) makes use of the singleton pattern in Ruby. There is basically no need to declare subclases off of most FXRuby classes. This is a very C++ish way, and the way the C++ Fox Toolkit works. It will make most hard-core Rubyists gnash their teeth.

Here, we do away with all of it. Also, the SEL_x variables – which maps to the C++ #defines of the same – is replaced with method declarations of the nature of sel_x – just the lowercase version of the same. For instance, in the straight fxruby, you would have to do something like:

@canvas.connect(SEL_PAINT) { |sender, sel, evt|
  FXDCWindow.new(sender, evt) { |dc|
    dc.drawImage(@backBuffer, 0, 0)
  }

but with Enhancement, you do it thusly:

instance { |c|
  c.sel_paint { |sender, sel, event|
    FXDCWindow.new(sender, event) { |dc|
      dc.drawImage(ref(:back_buffer), 0, 0)
    }
  }
}

And here we illustrate something else, the instance declaration. Why do we do it this way? Because Enhancement is multi-phase. First, we declare the GUI layout with Enhancement. At this time, none of the underlying FXRuby objects exist yet, but need to be referenced anyway. So we defer that part where references need to be resolved to the instance claus, which, as you can well imagine, means the FXRuby object instances have been instantiated.

You will also note the use of the ref clause, as in:

dc.drawImage(ref(:back_buffer), 0, 0)

When the :back_buffer object was declared, it was done thusly:

fx_image(:back_buffer) { opts IMAGE_KEEP }

So when the actual FXImage object is instantiated, it is associated to the :back_buffer tag, which then is found by ref() and can be used anywhere in the instantiation phase.

This is something to be aware of, depending on how you’d like to style your code for Enhancement. I prefer the use of the braces {}, but others might prefer the use of do…end.

Even though Ehnancement is a bit “opionated”, I don’t wish to impose a coding style on you. But I do wish to alert you to the subtle difference in syntax that Ruby expects.

If you use the braces, you must enclose the parameters to the directive in parens (). If you use do…end, you have no such requirement. for example, to use do…end:

fx_app :app do
  ...
end

is perfectly OK, whereas:

fx_app :app {
  ...
}

would generate a syntax error. You must, in this case:

fx_app (:app) {
  ...
}

And that won’t get your hands slapped by the Ruby parser.

This represents the work flow, in the order stated:

This phase, under the proverbial hood, ceates the component objects, which are just place-holders for the underlying FXRuby objects.

When the FXRuby object is created, it is assigned to its place holder component object, and can be references as comp.inst. In most cases, you will almost never need to touch the component objects directly.

During the FXRuby instantiantion stage, all of the FXRuby objects are instantiated and stored in their respective component objects. If they are tagged, the instantiated object may be referenced with ref(), and the component object itself may be referenced via refc(). There is almost never a case where you would need to go after the component object directly.

All of the FOX Toolkit C++ objects, resources, etc. that correspond to the FXRuby objects are now set up, and activated. With the all-important “show PLACEMENT_SCREEN” command, the FOX GUI should now be visible.

In handling interfacing to databases, AMQPs like RabbitMQ, network connections, or just about anything else that might otherwise slow down the GUI (Fox) thread and make it non-responsive, there needs to be a clean way to get data into and out of the GUI thread.

Fox provides some mechanisms specifically for sockets or system-level IO, but these are too specific, and would require some awkard workarounds to make them work in the general context.

And so we provide a means to accomplish that in a clean – to you, anyway – manner. We make use of queue_ding queues for passing messages into and out of the FXRuby (and therefore FXRuby Enhancement) space. This will allow you to keep the GUI thread responsive and also to maintain a seperation of concerns.

Queue Ding is an enhancement for doing queing across threads in Ruby, and we offer it here to allow external events to be funneled into and out of the Fox GUI thread. Usage is easy and straightforard. When removing entries from Queue Ding using #next, the queue will block until the next entry arrives. Since Queue Ding is really derived from ::Array, you may also do thing like #empty? to check to see if entries are availabe to avoid blocking.

To get messages objects into fxruby_enhacement, simply #push or #<< it into the queue as shown:

Enhancement.ingress << [:some_tag, some_payload]

In the DSL, you must set up a handler for the ingress,

ingress_handler :status do |tag, payload|
  puts "received #{tag} => #{payload}"
end

And so your handler will most likely act as a dispatcher for the payloads received. For example:

ingress_handler :log_info, :log_error do |tag, logline|
  puts "received #{tag} => #{payload}"
  case tag
  when :log_info
    ref(:logging_info).appendItem logline
  when :log_error
    ref(:logging_error).appendItem logline
  end
end

Note that this ingress handler is responding to two tags. You can have as many tags as you like for your ingress handler, and as many ingress handlers as you like.

Currently, all the tags should be unique. Later we may support having multiple blocks associated with the same tag. Please feel free to generate an issue if you want this!!!

Wnen your Fox application needs to send a message to other listening threads, You simply push your payload onto the egress queue thusly:

Enhancement.egress << [:button_clicked, "I was clicked!"]

and your Ruby thread external to Fox would simply do:

...
message = Enhancement.egress.next
...

where you’ll block pending the arrival of the next message. If you do not wish to block, you may do:

...
unless Enhancement.egress.empty?
  message = Enhancement.egress.next 
else
  # some action to take
end
...

There are times you may want to be able to create, and popup, say, a dialog box, or perhaps you want to create on the fly child components on an existing window.

This is made possible with the “reuse: true” flag. For example:

fx_dialog_box(:dialog, reuse: true) {
  title "I am a Dialog!"
  opts DECOR_ALL
  
  fx_button {
    text "&It Works!"
    instance { |dia|
      dia.sel_command {
        refc(:dialog).stoppen
      }
    }
  }      
  instance { |dia| dia.show PLACEMENT_OWNER  }
}

This code snippet can be run in the context of the app or a window. If you do it in a window context, that window will become the “owner”, and will initially be placed hovering over it.

With reusable components, you will use the #starten and #stoppen methods to create and destroy the component. Please see the Dialog Box for a full example, and also the docs for #starten and #stoppen.

In an effort to eliminate the fuss and bother with scoping issues and object reference, ref(:some_tag) will retrive the FXRuby instance object so tagged with :some_tag.

You may have anonymous, i.e., untagged objects, and those will not be findable by ref(). It is not necessary to tag all objects, either.

refc() is similar to ref(), except it retrives the underlying component object insted. Indeed, the following are equivalent operations:

ref(:some_tag)
refc(:some_tag).inst

Where might you want to use refc() instead of ref()? In cases where the underlying FXRuby object have not been instantiated yet, you’d use refc() instead of ref(), almost always during the component configuration. For example:

fx_app :app do
...
  fx_button {
    text "&See Ya!"
    selector FXApp::ID_QUIT
    target refc(:app)
  }
...

Here, we set the button to exit the application by sending the FXApp object the ID_QUIT message. But at the time we set the configuration, the FXApp object has not been instantiated yet. So we use refc() instead of ref().

Underlying, the component object is really a subclass of OpenScript. While you may like to stuff some additional data there, this is frowned upon because it might conflict with Enhancement. If you have a need for this, please do a issue in GitHub.

The ‘as’ clause allow you to shift context back to a previously defined component, so that you can factor your code in a way to promote encapsulation.

This is especially useful in large projects where you are making heavy use of binding.fx to modularize your GUI layout. It helps you keep everything related in one place.

For example, deep within a window definition, you made need to define an image to be used by a widget. However, the image needs to be defined in the fx_app context, taking it far away from where it is actially needed. Here’s an example of how you would do that:

fx_main_window(:bounce_window) {
  title "Bounce Demo"
  ...
  as (:app) {
    fx_image(:back_buffer) { opts IMAGE_KEEP }
  }
  ...

As you can see, your components will need to be tagged to be referenced by ‘as’.

fox_component and fox_instance are roughly the equivalent of refc() and ref(), respecively. The difference mainly being that fox_component does no sanity checking, and is therefore slightly faster.

At some point, they may be merged, but for now don’t count on it.

To initialize and run your app, you customairly do the following:

fox_component :app do |app|
  app.launch
end

Which presumes your fx_app declaration was tagged with :app as follows:

fx_app :app do
  app_name "Your Amazingly Cool Application"
  vendor_name "YouDaMan"
  ...
end

This is the only time you will reference the component object directly for the obvious reason that you must start from someonere.

To begin the declaration of your app, you must do the following somewhere:

fx_app :app do
  app_name "The Forbin Project"
  vendor_name "Colossus"
  ...
end

Typeically you’d do this inside of a module, but you could do it also in a class body. Please see the examples.

• NOTE WELL: fx_chart is still under development, and has not been released yet for general usage. The documentation in this section will change, I promise, so please be aware of that. I am open to your suggestions and input during development, so feel free to raise issues.

fx_chart is a custom widget supplied by Enhancement, and provides very simple charting abilities. We have mainly created this with the needs of RubyNEAT in mind, but hopefully we will eventually grow the scope of what fx_chart can do.

Initally, we provide basic x-y Cartesian charting suitable for representing time series, etc.

Data is in the format of an array of vectors, with each update adding a new vector to the array. For example:

[
[1, 22.1, 34.2, 11],
[2, 23.4, 25.0, 14],
[3, 25.2, 35.2, 12],
[4, 21.9, 63.3, 11],
[5, 11.4, 50.1, 20],
]

Even though the “vectors” are themselves arrays, we shall refer to them as such for the sake of this discussion.

You may specify the first entry in the vector as the range, in which case it will be used to plot the rest of the vector as the “range” on the chart.

Each entry in the vectors must have some sort of designation to describe how the chart will display them. So we represent this as an association of labels, and each label will define how the data from that position in the vector will be drawn and labeled. For example:

{
  0 => {
    label: 'x-axis',
    type: :range
    },
  1 => {
    label: 'Germany',
    type: :data,
    color: :yellow,
    thickness: 3
    },
  2 => {
    label: 'Poland',
    type: :data,
    color: :blue,
    thickness: 1
    },
  3 => {
    label: 'Östereich',
    type: :data,
    color: :green,
    thickness: 2
  },
}

Specifying the position of the vector as keys in the hash will allow us to “leave gaps” in the specification, particulary when the number of entries in that vector become large.

FOX (and therefor FXRuby) supports data synchronization among components. fx_data_target encapsulates the FXDataTarget class, just like all the other fx_* directives do. However, in this case, some special treatment is necessary since it is referenced at a time the underlying FXRuby object has not been created yet.

Enter refc(). You use refc(), instead of ref(), to use it when you are configuring the component (really, specifying the initial parameters to the underlying FXRuby class!) We illustrate here:

...
fx_data_target (:mydata) { value "initial value"  }
...
fx_text (:text_3) {
  target refc(:mydata)
  selector FXDataTarget::ID_VALUE
}
fx_text (:text_4) {
  target refc(:mydata)
  selector FXDataTarget::ID_VALUE
}

And so the two text components – or widgets – are initially set to the value of “initial value”, and when one changes, the other is instantly updated.

Otherwise, you can deal with fx_data_target as expected. See the DataTarget Example.

For canvas work, you typically have to create and destory the FXDCWindow object. To ease this, use the fx_dc instead. For example:

button.sel_command {
  fx_dc :canvas do |dc|
    dc.foreground = ref(:canvas).backColor
    dc.fillRectangle(0, 0, ref(:canvas).width, ref(:canvas).height)
    @dirty = false
  end
}

instead of:

button.sel_command {
  FXDCWindow.new(ref(:canvas)) do |dc|
    dc.foreground = ref(:canvas).backColor
    dc.fillRectangle(0, 0, ref(:canvas).width, ref(:canvas).height)
    @dirty = false
  end
}

This example has been borrowed from Scribble.

Inside of your component declaration, you will undoubtly want to specify what you want to do once the FXRuby object is actually instantiated. This is what the instance clause will allow you to do. Your code block there will be passed a reference to the FXRuby object, allowing you to set up connections, change the component state, etc.

There are some added benefits as well. When making a connection, with the normal FXRuby, you would do something like this:

...
aButton.connect(SEL_COMMAND)  { |sender, selector, data|
  ... code to handle this event ...
}

But with Enhancement, you would be able to do it thusly:

fx_button(:my_button) {
  ... configs for this FXButton object ...
  instance { |button|
    button.sel_command { |sender, selector, data|
      ... code to handle this event ...
    }
  }
}

which will make it feel more Ruby-like and less C++-like.

ingress_handler will allow you to set up the handler for messages coming in from an external source to FXRuby thread, such as RabbitMQ, network connections, databases, or anything else. It allows you to do clean multhreaded Ruby without the normal worries of semaphores and synchronization and the like – it is all handled for you “magically” behind the scenes!

You may have as many ingress_handlers specified as you like, as each one needs to have a tag, and the tags are used to dispatch the messages.

Here is an example taken from RubyNEAT Panel:

ingress_handler :status do |type, status|
  suc, st = status.response
 
  wlist = ref :ov_conn_neaters_widget_list
  wlist.clearItems
  st[:neaters].each { |neater| wlist.appendItem neater }

  nlist = ref :ov_conn_neurons_list
  nlist.clearItems
  st[:neurons].each { |neuron| nlist.appendItem neuron}
end

Here you can see that a status message has been dispatched to this ingress_handler, and that the message contains a list of ‘neaters’ and ‘neurons’ that are being sent to the wlist and nlist list (:ov_conn_neaters_widget_list and :ov_conn:_neurons_list), respecively.

You may declare your ingress_handler anywhere in your code and have the expected happen.

igress_handler may also be specified with more than one tag, for instance:

ingress_handler :warn, :info, :error do |type, log|
  case type
  when :warn
    ...
  when :info
    ...
  when :error
    ...
  else
    raise "Unknown log type"
  end
end

The same block is assigned to all the given tags of :warn, :info, and :error.

To designate a component as reusable, declare it with “reuse: true” as in the example:

fx_dialog_box(:dialog, reuse: true) { ... }

Then in the instance clause or to the response to an event, you would do:

refc(:dialog).starten

to activate it, and

refc(:dialog).stoppen

to deactive it (and remove the ‘server’-side FOX components!)

Note that you call refc(), not ref() in this case, because the functionality lies in the component object holder for the actual FOX component, not within the FXRuby object itself.

This feature is still under development, and is not fully implemented yet.

To be documented.

This is a way to split up your layouts into different .fx “modules”, purely for organizational reasons. For example,

binding.fx "overview"

will load the overview.fx portion of the GUI, which happens to be a tab contents in the tab book, which in our case looks like:

# Overview Tab

fx_tab_item { text "&Overview" }
fx_horizontal_frame (:overview_info) {
  opts STD_FRAME|LAYOUT_FILL_Y
  
  fx_group_box (:ov_connections_group) {
    text "Connections"
    opts STD_GROUPBOX|LAYOUT_FILL_Y
    
    fx_vertical_frame {
      opts LAYOUT_FILL_Y|LAYOUT_FILL_X #|PACK_UNIFORM_HEIGHT
 
      fx_group_box (:ov_conn_rabbitmq) {
...

Because this is a spinoff project of the ongoing RubyNEAT effort, there is a splendid RubyNEAT Panel example, that is still in the works. However, you are free to look at the code that is there to get good ideas.

https://github.com/flajann2/rubyneat-panel/tree/master/lib/rubyneat-panel

Class-based Enhancement (this is currently not supported!!!):

class Main < FXMainWindow
  compose :my_window do
    title "RubyNEAT Panel"
    show PLACEMENT_SCREEN
    width 700
    height 400
    fx_tab_book :my_book do |tab_book_ob|
      x 0
      y 0
      width 500
      height 100
      pad_bottom 10
      fx_text :my_text1, :my_window { |text_ob|
        width 200
        height 100
        text_ob.target my_window: :on_click
      }
      fx_text :my_text2, :my_window { |text_ob|
        width 200
        height 100
        text_ob { |t| puts "called after object initialization" }
      }
    end
  end

  def on_click
    ...
  end
end    

Class-free Enhancement (strongly recommended):

mw = fx_main_window :my_window do 
    title "RubyNEAT Panel"
    width 700
    height 400
    opts DECOR_ALL
    x 10
    y 10
    instance { show PLACEMENT_SCREEN }
    fx_tab_book :my_book do |tab_book_ob|
      x 0
      y 0
      width 500
      height 100
      pad_bottom 10
      fx_text :my_text1, :my_window { |text_ob|
        width 200
        height 100
        instance my_window: :on_click
      }
      fx_text :my_text2, :my_window { 
        width 200
        height 100
        instance { |t| puts "called after object initialization" }
      }
    end
  end

  def mw.on_click
    ...
  end
end    

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
require 'fxruby-enhancement'

include Fox
include Fox::Enhancement::Mapper

fx_app :app do
  app_name "Hello"
  vendor_name "Example"

  fx_main_window(:main) {
    title "Hello"
    opts DECOR_ALL

    fx_button {
      text "&Hello, World"
      selector FXApp::ID_QUIT
      
      instance { |b|
        b.target = ref(:app)
      }
    }

    instance { |w|
      w.show PLACEMENT_SCREEN
    }
  }
end

# alias for fox_component is fxc
fox_component :app do |app|
  app.launch
end

#!/usr/bin/env ruby

require 'fox16'

include Fox

application = FXApp.new("Hello", "FoxTest")
main = FXMainWindow.new(application, "Hello", nil, nil, DECOR_ALL)
FXButton.new(main, "&Hello, World!", nil, application, FXApp::ID_QUIT)
application.create()
main.show(PLACEMENT_SCREEN)
application.run()

Even though the old way has a slightly smaller line count, you can see how messy it can be assigning each newly-created object to a variable, and then having to pass that variable to the children. Perhaps this example is too small, but perhaps the next one will more illustrative.

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
require 'fxruby-enhancement'

include Fox
include Fox::Enhancement::Mapper

ANIMATION_TIME = 20

class Ball
  attr_reader :color
  attr_reader :center
  attr_reader :radius
  attr_reader :dir
  attr_reader :x, :y
  attr_reader :w, :h
  attr_accessor :worldWidth
  attr_accessor :worldHeight

  
  def initialize r
    @radius = r
    @w = 2*@radius
    @h = 2*@radius
    @center = FXPoint.new(50, 50)
    @x = @center.x - @radius
    @y = @center.y - @radius
    @color = FXRGB(255, 0, 0) # red
    @dir = FXPoint.new(-1, -1)
    setWorldSize(1000, 1000)
  end
  
  # Draw the ball into this device context
  def draw(dc)
    dc.setForeground(color)
    dc.fillArc(x, y, w, h, 0, 64*90)
    dc.fillArc(x, y, w, h, 64*90, 64*180)
    dc.fillArc(x, y, w, h, 64*180, 64*270)
    dc.fillArc(x, y, w, h, 64*270, 64*360)
  end

  def bounce_x
    @dir.x=-@dir.x
  end

  def bounce_y
    @dir.y=-@dir.y
  end

  def collision_y?
    (y<0 && dir.y<0) || (y+h>worldHeight && dir.y>0)
  end

  def collision_x?
    (x<0 && dir.x<0) || (x+w>worldWidth && dir.x>0)
  end

  def setWorldSize(ww, wh)
    @worldWidth = ww
    @worldHeight = wh
  end
  
  def move(units)
    dx = dir.x*units
    dy = dir.y*units
    center.x += dx
    center.y += dy
    @x += dx
    @y += dy
    if collision_x?
      bounce_x
      move(units)
    end
    if collision_y?
      bounce_y
      move(units)
    end
  end
end

fx_app :app do
  app_name "Bounce"
  vendor_name "Example"

  fx_image(:back_buffer) { opts IMAGE_KEEP }
  
  fx_main_window(:bounce_window) {
    title "Bounce Demo"
    opts DECOR_ALL
    width 400
    height 300
    
    instance { |w|
      def w.ball
        @ball ||= Ball.new(20)
      end
      
      def w.drawScene(drawable)
        FXDCWindow.new(drawable) { |dc|
          dc.setForeground(FXRGB(255, 255, 255))
          dc.fillRectangle(0, 0, drawable.width, drawable.height)
          ball.draw(dc)
        }
      end
      
      def w.updateCanvas
        ball.move(10)
        drawScene(ref(:back_buffer))
        ref(:canvas).update
      end
      
      #
      # Handle timeout events
      #
      def w.onTimeout(sender, sel, ptr)
        # Move the ball and re-draw the scene
        updateCanvas
        
        # Re-register the timeout
        ref(:app).addTimeout(ANIMATION_TIME, ref(:bounce_window).method(:onTimeout))
        
        # Done
        return 1
      end
      
      w.show PLACEMENT_SCREEN
      ref(:app).addTimeout(ANIMATION_TIME, w.method(:onTimeout))
    }
    
    fx_canvas(:canvas) {
      opts LAYOUT_FILL_X|LAYOUT_FILL_Y
      
      instance { |c|
        c.sel_paint { |sender, sel, event|
          FXDCWindow.new(sender, event) { |dc|
            dc.drawImage(ref(:back_buffer), 0, 0)
          }
        }

        c.sel_configure{ |sender, sel, event|
          bb = ref(:back_buffer)
          bb.create unless bb.created?
          bb.resize(sender.width, sender.height)
          ref(:bounce_window) do |bw|
            bw.ball.setWorldSize(sender.width, sender.height)
            bw.drawScene(bb)
          end
        }
      }
    }
  }
end

if __FILE__ == $0
  # alias for fox_component is fxc
  fox_component :app do |app|
    app.launch
  end
end

require 'fox16'

include Fox

# How long to pause between updates (in milliseconds)
ANIMATION_TIME = 20

class Ball

  attr_reader :color
  attr_reader :center
  attr_reader :radius
  attr_reader :dir
  attr_reader :x, :y
  attr_reader :w, :h
  attr_accessor :worldWidth
  attr_accessor :worldHeight

  # Returns an initialized ball
  def initialize(r)
    @radius = r
    @w = 2*@radius
    @h = 2*@radius
    @center = FXPoint.new(50, 50)
    @x = @center.x - @radius
    @y = @center.y - @radius
    @color = FXRGB(255, 0, 0) # red
    @dir = FXPoint.new(-1, -1)
    setWorldSize(1000, 1000)
  end

  # Draw the ball into this device context
  def draw(dc)
    dc.setForeground(color)
    dc.fillArc(x, y, w, h, 0, 64*90)
    dc.fillArc(x, y, w, h, 64*90, 64*180)
    dc.fillArc(x, y, w, h, 64*180, 64*270)
    dc.fillArc(x, y, w, h, 64*270, 64*360)
  end

  def bounce_x
    @dir.x=-@dir.x
  end

  def bounce_y
    @dir.y=-@dir.y
  end

  def collision_y?
    (y<0 && dir.y<0) || (y+h>worldHeight && dir.y>0)
  end

  def collision_x?
    (x<0 && dir.x<0) || (x+w>worldWidth && dir.x>0)
  end

  def setWorldSize(ww, wh)
    @worldWidth = ww
    @worldHeight = wh
  end

  def move(units)
    dx = dir.x*units
    dy = dir.y*units
    center.x += dx
    center.y += dy
    @x += dx
    @y += dy
    if collision_x?
      bounce_x
      move(units)
    end
    if collision_y?
      bounce_y
      move(units)
    end
  end
end

class BounceWindow < FXMainWindow

  include Responder

  def initialize(app)
    # Initialize base class first
    super(app, "Bounce", :opts => DECOR_ALL, :width => 400, :height => 300)

    # Set up the canvas
    @canvas = FXCanvas.new(self, :opts => LAYOUT_FILL_X|LAYOUT_FILL_Y)

    # Set up the back buffer
    @backBuffer = FXImage.new(app, nil, IMAGE_KEEP)

    # Handle expose events (by blitting the image to the canvas)
    @canvas.connect(SEL_PAINT) { |sender, sel, evt|
      FXDCWindow.new(sender, evt) { |dc|
        dc.drawImage(@backBuffer, 0, 0)
      }
    }

    # Handle resize events
    @canvas.connect(SEL_CONFIGURE) { |sender, sel, evt|
      @backBuffer.create unless @backBuffer.created?
      @backBuffer.resize(sender.width, sender.height)
      @ball.setWorldSize(sender.width, sender.height)
      drawScene(@backBuffer)
    }

    @ball = Ball.new(20)
  end

  #
  # Draws the scene into the back buffer
  #
  def drawScene(drawable)
    FXDCWindow.new(drawable) { |dc|
      dc.setForeground(FXRGB(255, 255, 255))
      dc.fillRectangle(0, 0, drawable.width, drawable.height)
      @ball.draw(dc)
    }
  end

  def updateCanvas
    @ball.move(10)
    drawScene(@backBuffer)
    @canvas.update
  end

  #
  # Handle timeout events
  #
  def onTimeout(sender, sel, ptr)
    # Move the ball and re-draw the scene
    updateCanvas

    # Re-register the timeout
    getApp().addTimeout(ANIMATION_TIME, method(:onTimeout))

    # Done
    return 1
  end

  #
  # Create server-side resources
  #
  def create
    # Create base class
    super

    # Create the image used as the back-buffer
    @backBuffer.create

    # Draw the initial scene into the back-buffer
    drawScene(@backBuffer)

    # Register the timer used for animation
    getApp().addTimeout(ANIMATION_TIME, method(:onTimeout))

    # Show the main window
    show(PLACEMENT_SCREEN)
  end
end

if __FILE__ == $0
  FXApp.new("Bounce", "FXRuby") do |theApp|
    BounceWindow.new(theApp)
    theApp.create
    theApp.run
  end
end

The Ball class is the same, but the actual Fox-related code should clearly illustrate the power of Enhancement.

More examples can be found HERE.

fx_data_target (:some_name) must be referenced as refc(:some_name) and not ref(…). See the example below.

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
require 'fxruby-enhancement'

include Fox
include Fox::Enhancement::Mapper

fx_app :app do
  app_name "DataTarget"
  vendor_name "Example"

  fx_data_target (:textx) { value "x marks the spot!"  }
  fx_data_target (:texty) { value "y do it?"  }
  
  fx_main_window(:main) {
    title "fx_data_target example"
    opts DECOR_ALL
    width 300
    x 100
    y 200

    fx_text_field (:text_1) {
      ncols 40
      target refc(:textx)
      selector FXDataTarget::ID_VALUE
    }
    fx_text_field (:text_2) {
      ncols 40
      target refc(:textx)
      selector FXDataTarget::ID_VALUE
    }
    fx_text (:text_3) {
      opts LAYOUT_FILL_X
      target refc(:texty)
      selector FXDataTarget::ID_VALUE
    }
    fx_text (:text_4) {
      opts LAYOUT_FILL_X
      target refc(:texty)
      selector FXDataTarget::ID_VALUE
    }
    fx_button {
      text "&See ya!"
      selector FXApp::ID_QUIT
      opts BUTTON_NORMAL|LAYOUT_CENTER_X
      
      instance { |b|
        b.target = ref(:app)
      }
    }
    
    instance { |w|
      w.show PLACEMENT_SCREEN
    }
  }
end

# alias for fox_component is fxc
fox_component :app do |app|
  app.launch
end

• Check out the latest master to make sure the feature hasn’t been implemented or the bug hasn’t been fixed yet.
• Check out the issue tracker to make sure someone already hasn’t requested it and/or contributed it.
• Fork the project.
• Start a feature/bugfix branch.
• Commit and push until you are happy with your contribution.
• Make sure to add tests for it. This is important so I don’t break it in a future version unintentionally.
• Please try not to mess with the Rakefile, version, or history. If you want to have your own version, or is otherwise necessary, that is fine, but please isolate to its own commit so I can cherry-pick around it.

Copyright (c) 2016-2017 Fred Mitchell. See MIT License for further details.

These are my personal notes, not meant for anyone else. You may see some interesting tidbits here, but I am not gauranteeing anything to be useful or reliable in this section. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

    class FXToolBar # monkey patch
      include Enhancement
      attr_accessor :_o
    end

    def fx_tool_bar name, &block # DSL
      o = OStruct.new
      o.title = "default title"
      ...

      def o.title t 
        @title = t
      end    

      def o.instance a, &block
        o.instance_time_block = block
      end
      f = FXToolBar.new ...
      f._o = o
    end

<% for @class, @details in @api %>
   #<%= @class %> < <%= @details[:class][1] %>
   <% unless @details[:initialize].nil? %>
      <% for @iniparams in @details[:initialize] %>
         #<%= @iniparams %>   
      <% end %>
   <% else %>
      #No initializer
   <% end %>
<% end %>

We have an issue with needing to have reusable components (dialog boxes, say), and ṕroperly handling data targets designations.

Data targets cannot be done the same way we are doing the other fxruby components, because they have a different workflow. Basically, they need to be instantiated before the other comonents that uses them, and they are not really “child” objects, either. Referring to them using the ref() or refc() approach simply fails, because they won’t be instantiated in time.

We have ameroliated this problem by checking in the parameter list for an OpenStruct object, and calling #inst on it to pass in the instance, rather than the object itself. So now you simply use refc() in those cases.

This bug is a bit difficult to describe, but want to capture it here. It has to do with my “pushing the limits” of Ruby’s metaprogramming features.

module Fox
  module Enhancement
    module Mapper
      def fx_chart name = nil, ii: 0, pos: Enhancement.stack.last, reuse: nil, &block
        Enhancement.stack << (@os = os =
                              OpenStruct.new(klass: FXCanvas,
                                             op: [],
                                             ii: ii,
                                             fx: nil,
                                             kinder: [],
                                             inst: nil,
                                             instance_result: nil,
                                             reusable: reuse,
                                             type: :cartesian,
                                             axial: OpenStruct.new, #TODO: name changed to protect the innocent
                                             background: OpenStruct.new))
        Enhancement.components[name] = os unless name.nil?
        unless pos.nil?
          pos.kinder << os 
        else
          Enhancement.base = os
        end
        
        @os.op[0] = OpenStruct.new(:parent => :required,
                                   :target => nil,
                                   :selector => 0,
                                   :opts => FRAME_NORMAL,
                                   :x => 0,
                                   :y => 0,
                                   :width => 0,
                                   :height => 0)

        # Initializers for the underlying 
        def target var; @os.op[@os.ii].target = var; end
        def selector var; @os.op[@os.ii].selector = var; end
        def opts var; @os.op[@os.ii].opts = var; end
        def x var; @os.op[@os.ii].x = var; end
        def y var; @os.op[@os.ii].y = var; end
        def width var; @os.op[@os.ii].width = var; end
        def height var; @os.op[@os.ii].height = var; end
        
        # Chart specific
        def type var; @os.type = var; end

        #TODO: Subtle bug in Ruby 2.4.0 tripped over here with
        #TODO: the name of this funcion being the same as the
        #TODO: initialized variable in the OS, so I had to make
        #TODO: them different, hence the "axial".
        def axis ax, **kv
          ap @os.axial[ax] = OpenStruct.new(**kv)
        end

        def background **kv; kv.each{ |k,v| @os.background[k] = v }; end

        # What will be executed after FXCanvas is created.
        def instance a=nil, &block
          @os.instance_name = a
          @os.instance_block ||= []
          @os.instance_block << [a, block]
        end
        
        self.instance_eval &block
        
        os.fx = ->(){
          FXCanvas.new(*([pos.inst] + os.op[os.ii].to_h.values[1..-1]
                                      .map{ |v| (v.is_a?(OpenStruct) ? v.inst : v)
                         } ))
        }
        
        Enhancement.stack.pop                                                  
        @os = Enhancement.stack.last
        return os
      end
    end
  end
end

Change “axial” to “axis” to recrystalize this bug. I suspect that the parser or some aspect of the intepreter is confusing the “axis” function with the “axis” variable on the OpenStruct object, and it has to do with the exact way I am doing the parameters for the axis function that trips it up. A similar approach with the background function works perfectly fine:

def axis ax, **kv
  ap @os.axis[ax] = OpenStruct.new(**kv)
end

def background **kv; kv.each{ |k,v| @os.background[k] = v }; end

Which results in the error of:

ArgumentError: wrong number of arguments (given 0, expected 1)
from /home/alveric/.rbenv/versions/2.4.0/lib/ruby/gems/2.4.0/gems/fxruby-enhancement-0.2.0/lib/fxruby-enhancement/xtras/chart.rb:46:in `axis'

A simple workaround was to rename the variable to “axial” or anything different from the function “axis”.

I need to investigate if this bug also exists in prior releases of Ruby, and also produce a single-file scaled down example of this bug, so it can be reported back to Matz.

Oh, the time…

It is critical where the ‘as’ clause is executed, and we need to alter that, because the fx_data_target instance is not established at the time it’s needed.

It is thought that the execution must take place before kinder create_fox_components, but I need to think about this. It’s execution time is critical to the proper flow of Enhancement.

The following debug code allows you to specify not only which files to trace, but also a line range. And colored to. Massively useful. Maybe should be a gem in its own right?

### debugging
TRACE_FILES = %w{
api-mapper.rb:1832-1887
enhancement.rb
scribble.rb
ostruct-monkey.rb:16-29
}

TFILES = TRACE_FILES.map{ |s| s.split(':').first }

set_trace_func proc { |event, file, line, id, binding, classname|
  base, srange = File.basename(file).split(':')
  stnum, endnum = srange.split('-') unless srange.nil?
  stnum  = srange.nil? ? nil : stnum.to_i
  endnum = srange.nil? && endnum.nil? ? nil : endnum.to_i
  if TFILES.member?(base) && (srange.nil? ||
                                  (endnum.nil? && line == stnum) ||
                                  (stnum <= line && line <= endnum))
    printf "%8s \033[32m%s:%-2d\033[0m %10s \033[33m%.50s\033[0m \033[36m%.50s\033[0m\n",
           event,
           base,            #green
           line,            #green
           id,
           classname,       #yellow
           binding.receiver #cyan
  end
}
### end debugging

It is now indeed clear that the ‘as’ must stick its kinder in the kinder list of ‘as’es parent component, NOT the referred ‘as’ component itself. This is conceptually tricky from the code point of view, BUT it is the intuitive assumption from the programmer’s point of view. From his perspective, ‘as’ “executes” at the place he put it.

And so let us do the “hard” thing here to make the lives of our users happy. :D

We have solution. We simply will put the kinder parent in a hash with the Enhancement.stack level that this kinder parent as opposed to the “real” parent is to be used. When the owner ‘as’ completes, it removes that entry from the hash.

This will allow for nesting of ‘as’ declerations as well, with the intituively expected result. I do not recommend nesting ‘as’ declarations, but at the same time I do not wish to restrict our users from doing so. I simply cannot conceive of all the possible ways Enhancement will be leveraged.

Passing in a nil for the event is not the same as passing in nothing at all. Probably has to do with how the C interface is implemented or works.

As such, we have the components of the chart laid out as boxes linking to each other to represent their relative positions to each other. As such:

And so, given the initial width and height of the canvas, we work to determine everything else. For those boxes that contain text, we know what the text will be, and therefore how long and tall – minimum – they will need to be. And thusly we use the hints.

Boxes can define their margins, and therefore, coupled with the float factor, determine their relationship with their neighors. a dominance score as shown in the diagram above determins how the layout will proceed.

Since the chart will have the same basic layout, with some components enabled and disabled and like, we shall work our way from the outside in.

Some boxes, like the Rulers, will take their width and height based on the dominate they are connected to. Others, like the title and caption and legend boxes, are floating.

We have come up with the splendid idea of creating the “NullBox” – basically the equivalent of having zero or the empty set. It will simplify the layout algorithm

The layout algorithm shall procede as follows:

• nil out all x,y, with, and heigts of all boxes
• set up the NullBox with the intitals
• work from the null box to its superiors, and so on, setting what can be set, leaving the rest for later.
• when you reach the most dominant box (with no superiors of its own), you should be able to fully determine its dimensions.
• work back down the chain and fill in anything that’s missing.

For the float layout:

• We really want to keep this simple (for now), so its with and height is already set by the hints.
• for the most superior, it will have no superiors, just subordinates only, so its dimensions will be determined thusly.

In all of this, this layout will take place everytime the application window is resized, so be aware of this. The computaitons shall be swift, just basic MDAS arithemtic. Nothing heavy-duty or fancy.

For the superior layout, we calculate the x and height, or the y and width respectively, for the boxes. Floating status becomes critical here, for the above will only need to be determined thusly for the non-floating cases, where there is dependency on the superior’s dimensions and position.

-->PureText unresolved: comparison of NilClass with 20 failed
-->Graph: unresolved: undefined method `-' for nil:NilClass
                                              left dom=0 xywh=[0,0,0,300]       LRTB=[0,0,0,0]
                                             right dom=0 xywh=[400,0,0,300]     LRTB=[0,0,0,0]
                                               top dom=0 xywh=[0,0,400,0]       LRTB=[0,0,0,0]
                                            bottom dom=0 xywh=[0,300,400,0]     LRTB=[0,0,0,0]
          Fox::Enhancement::Xtras::Charting::Title dom=1 xywh=[190,0,20,10]     LRTB=[0,0,0,0]      floater
        Fox::Enhancement::Xtras::Charting::Caption dom=1 xywh=[190,290,20,10]   LRTB=[0,0,0,0]      floater
         Fox::Enhancement::Xtras::Charting::Legend dom=1 xywh=[350,135,50,30]   LRTB=[0,0,0,0]      floater

       Fox::Enhancement::Xtras::Charting::TopRuler dom=2 xywh=[NIL,10,20,10]    LRTB=[0,0,0,0]
    Fox::Enhancement::Xtras::Charting::BottomRuler dom=2 xywh=[NIL,280,20,10]   LRTB=[0,0,0,0]
      Fox::Enhancement::Xtras::Charting::LeftRuler dom=2 xywh=[0,NIL,20,10]     LRTB=[0,0,0,0]
     Fox::Enhancement::Xtras::Charting::RightRuler dom=2 xywh=[330,NIL,20,10]   LRTB=[0,0,0,0]

          Fox::Enhancement::Xtras::Charting::Graph dom=3 xywh=[-20,0,350,280]   LRTB=[0,0,0,0]
          Fox::Enhancement::Xtras::Charting::Graph dom=3 xywh=[-20,0,350,280]   LRTB=[0,0,0,0]

       Fox::Enhancement::Xtras::Charting::TopRuler dom=2 xywh=[-20,10,350,10]   LRTB=[0,0,0,0]
    Fox::Enhancement::Xtras::Charting::BottomRuler dom=2 xywh=[-20,280,350,10]  LRTB=[0,0,0,0]
      Fox::Enhancement::Xtras::Charting::LeftRuler dom=2 xywh=[0,0,20,280]      LRTB=[0,0,0,0]
     Fox::Enhancement::Xtras::Charting::RightRuler dom=2 xywh=[330,0,20,280]    LRTB=[0,0,0,0]

          Fox::Enhancement::Xtras::Charting::Title dom=1 xywh=[190,0,20,10]     LRTB=[0,0,0,0]      floater
        Fox::Enhancement::Xtras::Charting::Caption dom=1 xywh=[190,290,20,10]   LRTB=[0,0,0,0]      floater
         Fox::Enhancement::Xtras::Charting::Legend dom=1 xywh=[350,135,50,30]   LRTB=[0,0,0,0]      floater