Where to find Ada GTK example programs to try?

Where to find Ada GTK example programs to try?

[Nasser M. Abbasi]

I'd like to try to make GUI with Ada. I assume the best
choice is to use GTK?

http://docs.adacore.com/live/wave/gtkada/html/gtkada_ug/getting_started.html
http://docs.adacore.com/live/wave/gtkada/html/gtkada_ug/index.html

Any one knows of an actual Ada GUI applications, ready to run,
that I can download, install, and run just to see how they
look and feel?

I googled but not finding any so far. I know there is
also Qt binding for Ada. If one knows of such examples
to download and try, that will be great also.

Thanks
--Nasser

Re: Where to find Ada GTK example programs to try?

[Ludovic Brenta]

"Nasser M. Abbasi" <nma@12000.org> writes:
> I'd like to try to make GUI with Ada. I assume the best
> choice is to use GTK?
>
> http://docs.adacore.com/live/wave/gtkada/html/gtkada_ug/getting_started.html
> http://docs.adacore.com/live/wave/gtkada/html/gtkada_ug/index.html
>
> Any one knows of an actual Ada GUI applications, ready to run,
> that I can download, install, and run just to see how they
> look and feel?

GtkAda comes with testgtk which is intended both as a test program for
all widgets and as a demo.  If you use the Debian package, do

tar xzf /usr/share/doc/libgtkada*-dev/examples/testgtk.tgz

in a source directory that you create.

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.

Re: Where to find Ada GTK example programs to try?

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On 2020-05-08 00:21, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote:

> Any one knows of an actual Ada GUI applications, ready to run,
> that I can download, install, and run just to see how they
> look and feel?

This application is called GPS!

GTK uses native look and feel, it should look the way a normal Windows, 
X11 GUI application looks.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Re: Where to find Ada GTK example programs to try?

[Brian Drummond]

On Fri, 08 May 2020 01:10:01 +0200, Ludovic Brenta wrote:

> "Nasser M. Abbasi" <nma@12000.org> writes:
>> I'd like to try to make GUI with Ada. I assume the best choice is to
>> use GTK?
>>
>> http://docs.adacore.com/live/wave/gtkada/html/gtkada_ug/
getting_started.html
>> http://docs.adacore.com/live/wave/gtkada/html/gtkada_ug/index.html
>>
>> Any one knows of an actual Ada GUI applications, ready to run,
>> that I can download, install, and run just to see how they look and
>> feel?
> 
> GtkAda comes with testgtk which is intended both as a test program for
> all widgets and as a demo.  If you use the Debian package, do
> 
> tar xzf /usr/share/doc/libgtkada*-dev/examples/testgtk.tgz
> 
> in a source directory that you create.

A while back I put together a little harness intended to help me get 
started with features extracted from TestGTK.

Having found something useful (e.g. na example of a scrolling text 
window), this harness lets you extract that one feature from testgtk and 
build it as a simple standalone application, focussing ONLY on the 
selected feature.

It's a starting point for working with it and incorporating it into your 
own code.

Probably no interest to experienced Gtkada programmers, but I found it 
helpful as a beginner.

https://github.com/Brian-Drummond/testgtk_harness

-- Brian

Re: Where to find Ada GTK example programs to try?

[Nasser M. Abbasi]

On 5/8/2020 1:19 AM, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
> On 2020-05-08 00:21, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote:
> 
>> Any one knows of an actual Ada GUI applications, ready to run,
>> that I can download, install, and run just to see how they
>> look and feel?
> 
> This application is called GPS!
> 
> GTK uses native look and feel, it should look the way a normal Windows,
> X11 GUI application looks.
> 

Yes, I forgot about GPS. I remember reading it used GTK.

But I also remember reading the other day that you said about GPS using
using Python somehow, right?

I have GPS. It is nice. But GTK Ada has been around for long time.

Someone must have written some animations or simulation or game
GUI using Ada-GTK,

That is what I meant. May be you did yourself also, since I know
you are an expert in Ada GTK also.

For example, can one use Ada GTK to make GUI apps like these?

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/collections/game.fc1

I am sure all the above were written in C++ or C#, since
they are from MS store. There are sites like the above
with thousands of apps. I will be nice to have
such examples for ones done using only Ada-GTK.

May be the folks who use Ada all the time prefer to do
serious real-time embedded system program for air traffic
control systems and have no time for making silly GUI apps
in Ada :)

--Nasser

Re: Where to find Ada GTK example programs to try?

[Ludovic Brenta]

"Nasser M. Abbasi" <nma@12000.org> writes:
> Yes, I forgot about GPS. I remember reading it used GTK.
>
> But I also remember reading the other day that you said about GPS using
> using Python somehow, right?

Yes. GPS uses both GtkAda (for the GUI) and Python (for scripting).

> I have GPS. It is nice. But GTK Ada has been around for long time.

So has GPS.

> Someone must have written some animations or simulation or game
> GUI using Ada-GTK,

Ah, GTK (and GtkAda) is not intended for this.  You can write games
using GtkAda but you'd be better off using SDL.  There is an Ada binding
at https://github.com/Lucretia/sdlada.  While GTK does only graphical
widgets, SDL does accelerated graphics, sound, joystick, etc.

The kind of games that you could make with GTK are desktop games like
the gnome games collection e.g. othello, card cames, chess, etc; not the
ones you refer to.

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.
The gatekeeper overdelivers our project, while the steering committee focuses on a non-mainstream EBITDA. 

Re: Where to find Ada GTK example programs to try?

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On 2020-05-08 22:02, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote:
> On 5/8/2020 1:19 AM, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
>> On 2020-05-08 00:21, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote:
>>
> Yes, I forgot about GPS. I remember reading it used GTK.
> 
> But I also remember reading the other day that you said about GPS using
> using Python somehow, right?

It does not use Python for GUI, only for scripting.

> I have GPS. It is nice. But GTK Ada has been around for long time.
> 
> Someone must have written some animations or simulation or game
> GUI using Ada-GTK,

GTK is a widget library, it is not purposed for a game engine, like Unreal.

> That is what I meant. May be you did yourself also, since I know
> you are an expert in Ada GTK also.

This one is in GtkAda:

    http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de/ada/max_home_automation.htm

> For example, can one use Ada GTK to make GUI apps like these?
> 
> https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/collections/game.fc1

GTK supports SVG, you can render some 3D stuff, but it is not for that.

> May be the folks who use Ada all the time prefer to do
> serious real-time embedded system program for air traffic
> control systems and have no time for making silly GUI apps
> in Ada :)

I would not classify computer games as GUI. And I would not start doing 
this from scratch in a GTK's drawable area! I did some 3D scene 
simulation in OpenGL about a quarter of century ago. That was no fun. 
Today you will need more than a human life span in order to catch up 
with modern 3D engines. Go for a ready to use stuff. Write Ada bindings 
if there is no any.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Game programming in Ada (was: Where to find Ada GTK example programs to try?)

[Ludovic Brenta]

> I would not classify computer games as GUI. And I would not start
> doing this from scratch in a GTK's drawable area! I did some 3D scene
> simulation in OpenGL about a quarter of century ago. That was no
> fun. Today you will need more than a human life span in order to catch
> up with modern 3D engines. Go for a ready to use stuff. Write Ada
> bindings if there is no any.

It is true that writing a high-quality 3D game is not feasible for a
single individual, especially not a beginner.  However it is still
possible to write 2D and pseudo-3D games and there are lots of tutorials
to help get started; almost all such games use SDL, so I'd encourage the
OP to look at that.

Like GTK, SDL was written in C for the explicit purpose of facilitating
bindings to higher-level languages and SDL has bindings for Ada and many
other languages.  Unfortunately no Ada-specific tutorials but plenty of
Pascal, Python, Lua etc. tutorials.

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.
The game is all about high quality, stress management, openness,
corporate governance, and white-collar productivity - not evolution,
strategic staircase, cost rationalization, and leadership culture.

Re: Where to find Ada GTK example programs to try?

[Jeffrey R. Carter]

On 5/8/20 12:21 AM, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote:
> 
> I'd like to try to make GUI with Ada. I assume the best
> choice is to use GTK?

It depends on your definition of "best". My experience with the GTKAda version 
of Mine_Detector was that pretty much every time there was a new (minor) version 
of GTKAda, my code had to change. I have since transitioned it to Gnoga, so I 
don't know if that's still the case.

The GTKAda version of Mine_Detector is at

https://github.com/malaise/ada/tree/master/cots/mine

where Pascal Malaise has been keeping it working with recent versions of GTKAda, 
and the Gnoga version is at

https://github.com/jrcarter/Mine_Detector

(select the "singleton" branch for a meaningful comparison). The GUI is in pkg 
User_IF.

Which you prefer is largely a matter of taste. GTKAda provides your native look 
and feel, while Gnoga provides your browser's look and feel; most people are 
comfortable with both.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"You can never forget too much about C++."
115

Re: Where to find Ada GTK example programs to try?

[mgr]

On 8/5/20 0:21, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote:
> Any one knows of an actual Ada GUI applications, ready to run,
> that I can download, install, and run just to see how they
> look and feel?

You'll find some in github:
https://github.com/topics/gtkada
https://github.com/search?q=gtkada

And in sourceforge (ignore "Learn More" entries):
https://sourceforge.net/directory/os:linux/?q=gtkada

Re: Where to find Ada GTK example programs to try?

[Optikos]

On Friday, May 8, 2020 at 3:02:39 PM UTC-5, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote:
> On 5/8/2020 1:19 AM, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
> > On 2020-05-08 00:21, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote:
> > 
> >> Any one knows of an actual Ada GUI applications, ready to run,
> >> that I can download, install, and run just to see how they
> >> look and feel?
> > 
> > This application is called GPS!
> > 
> > GTK uses native look and feel, it should look the way a normal Windows,
> > X11 GUI application looks.
> > 
> 
> Yes, I forgot about GPS. I remember reading it used GTK.
> 
> But I also remember reading the other day that you said about GPS using
> using Python somehow, right?
> 
> I have GPS. It is nice. But GTK Ada has been around for long time.
> 
> Someone must have written some animations or simulation or game
> GUI using Ada-GTK,

The Ada community needs a physics engine on top of which to build state-of-the-art games.  Either a binding or better yet a port or fresh design entirely in Ada2012 or Ada2020.  The benefit of a physics engine would have applicability to Ada's core mission of realtime embedded systems (even for military usage) far beyond gaming.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_engine