Glimmer DSL for FX 0.0.2

Glimmer DSL for FX enables building desktop applications with the FOX Toolkit via FXRuby.

FOX Toolkit is the most popular cross-platform desktop GUI toolkit in MRI Ruby, having 900,000+ FXRuby gem downloads and counting!

FOX Toolkit's forte is definitely Windows where no prerequisites are needed given that FXRuby includes Windows binaries out of the box.

Glimmer DSL for FX aims to supercharge productivity and maintainability in developing FOX Toolkit Ruby applications by providing a DSL similar to Glimmer DSL for SWT having:

• Declarative DSL syntax that visually maps to the GUI widget hierarchy
• Convention over configuration via smart defaults and automation of low-level details
• Requiring the least amount of syntax possible to build GUI
• Custom control support
• Bidirectional Data-Binding to declaratively wire and automatically synchronize GUI with Business Models
• Scaffolding for new custom widgets, apps, and gems
• Native-Executable packaging on Mac, Windows, and Linux.

Hello, World!

app('HelloWorld', 'Glimmer') {
  main_window('Hello, World!') {
    label('Hello, World!', opts: [:layout_center_x, :layout_center_y])
  }
}.run

Windows	Mac

NOTE: Glimmer DSL for FX is currently in early alpha mode (incomplete proof-of-concept). If you want it developed faster, then open an issue report. I have completed some GitHub project features much faster before due to issue reports and pull requests. Please help make better by contributing, adopting for small or low risk projects, and providing feedback. It is still an early alpha, so the more feedback and issues you report the better.Please help make better by contributing, adopting for small or low risk projects, and providing feedback. It is still an early alpha, so the more feedback and issues you report the better.

Learn more about the differences between various Glimmer DSLs by looking at the Glimmer DSL Comparison Table.

Run:

sudo apt-get install g++ libxrandr-dev libfox-1.6-dev

Make sure Homebrew is installed (e.g. by running /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)").

Run:

brew install fox
brew install xquartz

The glimmer-dsl-fx gem already contains all required library dependencies.

Run this command to install directly:

gem install glimmer-dsl-fx

Add the following to Gemfile:

gem 'glimmer-dsl-fx', '~> 0.0.2'

And, then run:

bundle

Require the library and mixin the Glimmer module to utilize the Glimmer GUI DSL for FX:

app('HelloWorld', 'Glimmer') {
  main_window('Hello, World!') {
    label('Hello, World!', opts: [:layout_center_x, :layout_center_y])
  }
}.run

For actual application development outside of simple demos, mixin the Glimmer module into a custom application class instead:

require 'glimmer-dsl-fx'

class SomeGlimmerApplication
  include Glimmer
  
  def launch
    app('HelloWorld', 'Glimmer') {
      main_window('Hello, World!') {
        label('Hello, World!', opts: [:layout_center_x, :layout_center_y])
      }
    }.run
  end
end

SomeGlimmerApplication.new.launch

The Glimmer GUI DSL enables development of desktop graphical user interfaces in a manner similar to HTML, but in one language, Ruby, thus avoiding the multi-language separation dissonance encountered on the web, especially given that Ruby looping/conditional constructs do not need scriptlets to be added around View code. This makes desktop development extremely productive.

1 - Keywords

Always start with app.

Inside app, nest main_window, and inside main_window, you may declare any FOX Toolkit control with its keyword, which is the underscored version of the class name minus the FX prefix. For example, label is the keyword for FXLabel

Examples:

label
button
text_field

2 - Arguments

Every FOX Toolkit control usually requires one main argument that is the second argument in the C++ API (e.g. button text or text_field column width) and extra kwargs specific to each control, like :opts, :width, and :height for button.

The FOX Toolkit :opts argument value is usually bit-or'ed Fox constants (e.g. FRAME_RAISED|FRAME_THICK). In Glimmer DSL for FX, you simply supply them as a downcased underscored Symbol Array separated by commas (e.g. [:frame_raised, :frame_thick])

Example:

label('Full Name', opts: [:layout_top, :justify_left])
button('Submit Form', opts: [:frame_raised, :frame_thick], icon: submit_icon, width: 300, height: 200)
text_field(20, opts: [:justify_right, :frame_sunken, :frame_thick, :layout_side_top])

The recommended style is to always wrap arguments with parentheses for control keywords.

3 - Content Block

You may pass a content block to any FOX Toolkit control keyword, which contains attributes and/or nested controls.

Example:

app('HelloWorld', 'Glimmer') {
  main_window('Hello, World!') {
    width 320
    height 240
  
    vertical_frame {
      label('Hello, Label!')
      button('Hello, Button!')
    }
  }
}.run

The recommended style for the content block is always curly braces {} to denote as View nesting code different from looping/conditional logic, which utilizes do;end instead.

Attribute arguments never have parentheses.

4 - Listeners

You may declare listeners with on(message_type) {...} where message_type is an underscored Symbol version of a Fox::SEL_XYZ message type constant (e.g. SEL_COMMAND, SEL_SELECTED, SEL_KEYPRESS, SEL_KEYRELEASE, SEL_CLICKED, SEL_LEFTBUTTONPRESS, or SEL_LEFTBUTTONRELEASE), but without the SEL_ prefix. For example: on(:command) {...}, on(:selected) {...}, on(:keypress) {...}, on(:keyrelease) {...}, on(:clicked) {...}, on(:leftbuttonpress) {...}, and on(:leftbuttonrelease) {...}.

Example:

app('HelloWorld', 'Glimmer') {
  main_window('Hello, World!') {
    button('Hello, Button!') { |b|
      on(:command) {
        b.text = 'Clicked'
      }
    }
  }
}.run

The recommended style for listeners is always a do; end block.

5 - Component Proxy & Methods

When utilizing the Glimmer GUI DSL, you get back proxy objects that wrap FOX Toolkit controls. To access the original control wrapped by the proxy object, you may call the #fx method.

Furthermore, you may invoke any method available on the control indirectly on the proxy object, like the #text method on label.

label1 = nil
app('HelloWorld', 'Glimmer') {
  main_window('Hello, World!') {
    label1 = label('Full Name')
  }
}
puts label1.text # prints: Full Name
puts label1.fx.text # prints: Full Name
label1.text = 'Name'
puts label1.text # prints: Name
puts label1.fx.text # prints: Name
label1.fx.text = 'Whole Name'
puts label1.text # prints: Whole Name
puts label1.fx.text # prints: Whole Name

6 - Observe Model Attributes

In Smalltalk-MVC (Model View Controller Architectural Pattern), the View is an active View that observes the Model for changes and updates itself.

This can be achieved with the Glimmer GUI DSL using the observe keyword, which takes a model (any object, including self) and attribute Symbol or String expression (e.g. :count or 'address.street'), and decouples the Model from the View.

The model is automatically enhanced as an Glimmer::DataBinding::ObservableModel / Glimmer::DataBinding::ObservableHash / Glimmer::DataBinding::ObservableArray depending on its type to support notifying observers of attribute changes (when performed using the attribute writer, which automatically calls added method notify_observers(attribute))

Note that it is usually recommended to observe external model objects (not self), but self is OK in very simple cases or presentation-related attributes only.

Example:

require 'glimmer-dsl-fx'

class Counter
  attr_accessor :count

  def initialize
    self.count = 0
  end
end

class HelloButton
  include Glimmer
  
  def initialize
    @counter = Counter.new

    observe(@counter, :count) do |new_count|
      @button.text = "Click To Increment: #{new_count}"
    end
  end
  
  def launch
    app('HelloButton', 'Glimmer') {
      main_window('Hello, Button!') {
        @button = button('Click To Increment: 0', opts: [:frame_raised, :frame_thick, :layout_center_x, :layout_center_y]) {
          on(:command) do
            @counter.count += 1
          end
        }
      }
    }.run
  end
end

HelloButton.new.launch

Windows	Mac

• app automatically shows main_window upon calling run while staring the main event loop.
• app automatically invokes open -a /Applications/Utilities/XQuartz.app upon running on Mac.
• Declaring app multiple times always returns the first app created (FOX Toolkit does not support multiple app instances)

You can run the girb command (bin/girb if you cloned the project locally):

girb

Windows	Mac

This gives you irb with the glimmer-dsl-fx gem loaded and the Glimmer module mixed into the main object for easy experimentation with GUI.

Note: GIRB for Glimmer DSL for FX 0.0.2 is still very rudimentary and does not support entering code for multiple applications, yet only one. You would have to exit and re-enter after each application entered.

Gotcha: On the Mac, when you close a window opened in girb, it remains open until you enter exit.

You may checkout the samples directory for examples of using Glimmer DSL for FX.

samples/hello/hello_world.rb

Windows	Mac

Run (via installed gem):

ruby -r glimmer-dsl-fx -e "require 'samples/hello/hello_world'"

Run (via locally cloned project):

ruby -r ./lib/glimmer-dsl-fx.rb samples/hello/hello_world.rb

Code:

require 'glimmer-dsl-fx'

include Glimmer

app('HelloWorld', 'Glimmer') {
  main_window('Hello, World!') {
    label('Hello, World!')
  }
}.run

samples/hello/hello_button.rb

Windows	Mac

Run (via installed gem):

ruby -r glimmer-dsl-fx -e "require 'samples/hello/hello_button'"

Run (via locally cloned project):

ruby -r ./lib/glimmer-dsl-fx.rb samples/hello/hello_button.rb

Code:

require 'glimmer-dsl-fx'

class HelloButton
  include Glimmer
  
  def initialize
    @count = 0
  end
  
  def launch
    app('HelloButton', 'Glimmer') {
      main_window('Hello, Button!') {
        @button = button("Click To Increment: 0", opts: [:frame_raised, :frame_thick, :layout_center_x, :layout_center_y]) {
          on(:command) do
            @count += 1
            @button.text = "Click To Increment: #{@count}"
          end
        }
      }
    }.run
  end
end

HelloButton.new.launch

• fxruby gem: https://github.com/larskanis/fxruby
• FOX Toolkit: http://www.fox-toolkit.org
• FOX Toolkit Documentation: http://www.fox-toolkit.org/doc.html
• FOX Toolkit 1.6 API Reference: http://www.fox-toolkit.org/ref16/classes.html

Glimmer Process

If you encounter issues that are not reported, discover missing features that are not mentioned in TODO.md, or think up better ways to use FX than what is possible with Glimmer DSL for FX, you may submit an issue or pull request on GitHub. In the meantime while waiting for a fix, you may try older gem versions of Glimmer DSL for FX in case you find one that does not have the issue and actually works.

If you need live help, try to

These features have been planned or suggested. You might see them in a future version of Glimmer DSL for FX. You are welcome to contribute more feature suggestions.

TODO.md

CHANGELOG.md

• 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.

• Andy Maleh (Founder)

Click here to view contributor commits.

LGPL

Copyright (c) 2021 Andy Maleh.

--

Built for Glimmer (DSL Framework).