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List:       kde-core-devel
Subject:    RE: More thoughts about embedding
From:       Simon Hausmann <shaus () uermel ! Med ! Uni-Magdeburg ! DE>
Date:       1999-09-30 9:42:35
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On Thu, 30 Sep 1999, David Faure wrote:

> >  2) Using IDL will *always* create a certain kind of bloat. Take the
> >     OpenParts pixmap conversion for example...
> Yes, but OTOH using QPixmap all over the place kills ANY interoperability,
> be it with Java, bonobo, c, perl, whatever.
> Hence the idea of _using_ QPixmap for koffice to koffice stuff,
> but keeping the IDL for interoperability.

Not sure I understand.. :-}

> > Another point:
> > If you want to use XML to describe a GUI, then you *need* 
> > direct access to
> > the embedded component, like for accessing QAction objects 
> > for example.
> > You cannot use CORBA here.
> Really ? I need to know more about this.
> Can't you describe in XML "I want a menu with such and such items, please
> add it" ?
> I suppose the problem is the callback when the item is pressed,
> but that's where corba helps.
> 
> I really see good points in that mixed XML-CORBA solution :
> you can add a lot of new GUI stuff in the XML format, so you
> don't create IDL bloat for that, but you are still able to
> communicate via CORBA to other languages/processes/machines,
> to send the XML and to implement actions when menu items are pressed,
> when you need to redraw yourself, etc...

There are two issues, as you mentioned:

1) callbacks

2) at-run-time-modifications of the GUI

Callbacks *could* be covered via the SII/DII, so that you specify
callbacks slot methods in XML. However this is ugly ;-)

If you want to modify elements of the GUI at run-time, then you need
something like OpenPartsUI, don't you? This is where I think the
QAction concept (which updates the GUI elements it is plugged in when
changing action properties at run-time) and some limited direct-access
to the toolbar/menus is the way to go. Everything else is probably a
clone of OpenPartsUI.

Ciao,
 Simon

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