Since D GUI framework is a new/old issue I have checked Harmonia (it is on D links page) and found it interesting ... and almost dead.

Does anybody know anything more about it ?

Thanks in advance,
Tamas Nagy

"MicroWizard" <MicroWizard_member@pathlink.com> wrote in message news:dsba8t$78f$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> Since D GUI framework is a new/old issue I have checked Harmonia (it is on
> D
> links page) and found it interesting ... and almost dead.

And what is particularly "dead" there? :)

>
> Does anybody know anything more about it ?
>

I know that there are three projects now using it for commercial projects. But have no idea what their status is now.

I suspect that people are waiting for "D, feature complete" state
as it's hard sometime to port from one D build to another.
E.g. inner classes introduction in D took three hours to fix and more to
verify.

Andrew Fedoniouk.
http://terrainformatica.com

Andrew Fedoniouk wrote:
> "MicroWizard" <MicroWizard_member@pathlink.com> wrote in message news:dsba8t$78f$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> 
>>Since D GUI framework is a new/old issue I have checked Harmonia (it is on D
>>links page) and found it interesting ... and almost dead.
> 
> 
> And what is particularly "dead" there? :)
> 
> 
>>Does anybody know anything more about it ?
>>
> 
> 
> I know that there are three projects now using it for
> commercial projects. But have no idea what their status is now.
> 
> I suspect that people are waiting for "D, feature complete" state
> as it's hard sometime to port from one D build to another.
> E.g. inner classes introduction in D took three hours to fix and more to verify.
> 
> Andrew Fedoniouk.
> http://terrainformatica.com
> 
> 
> 

I said this in another post, but I guess it would be more relevant here,
basically, I too looked at Harmonia and found it very interesting, but there simply isn't any documentation! Well, there is a class hirarchy, but that's about it!
It also doesn't work with the build tool, it needs make files!! C'mon, make files are so old-school, no one should use them with D.
Finally, it seems abandoned!! There's no forum, no sign of anyone who cares about it, no sign of any kind of community/users/whatever. No updates seem to be ever made to the page? or the project itself?
What do you call that? I call it "almost dead"! (The reason that there's an "almost" is because it seems in a usable state, so it's not completly dead).

I tried to play with it, but the makefile nonsense complicated it too much for me. Plus the no-documentation issue. I had no success with my attempts of playing with it.

"Hasan Aljudy" <hasan.aljudy@gmail.com> wrote in message news:dsbo8s$ird$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> Andrew Fedoniouk wrote:
>> "MicroWizard" <MicroWizard_member@pathlink.com> wrote in message news:dsba8t$78f$1@digitaldaemon.com...
>>
>>>Since D GUI framework is a new/old issue I have checked Harmonia (it is
>>>on D
>>>links page) and found it interesting ... and almost dead.
>>
>>
>> And what is particularly "dead" there? :)
>>
>>
>>>Does anybody know anything more about it ?
>>>
>>
>>
>> I know that there are three projects now using it for commercial projects. But have no idea what their status is now.
>>
>> I suspect that people are waiting for "D, feature complete" state
>> as it's hard sometime to port from one D build to another.
>> E.g. inner classes introduction in D took three hours to fix and more to
>> verify.
>>
>> Andrew Fedoniouk.
>> http://terrainformatica.com
>>
>>
>>
>
> I said this in another post, but I guess it would be more relevant here,
> basically, I too looked at Harmonia and found it very interesting, but
> there simply isn't any documentation! Well, there is a class hirarchy, but
> that's about it!
> It also doesn't work with the build tool, it needs make files!! C'mon,
> make files are so old-school, no one should use them with D.
> Finally, it seems abandoned!! There's no forum, no sign of anyone who
> cares about it, no sign of any kind of community/users/whatever. No
> updates seem to be ever made to the page? or the project itself?
> What do you call that? I call it "almost dead"! (The reason that there's
> an "almost" is because it seems in a usable state, so it's not completly
> dead).
>
> I tried to play with it, but the makefile nonsense complicated it too much for me. Plus the no-documentation issue. I had no success with my attempts of playing with it.

I am personally not using makefiles too.
There is a smile.dsw - workspace file for Microsoft Visual Studio 6.
It allows to edit source, compile and run it in debuger - almost as C++
project.
I would recommend you to grab VS from somewhere if you want to do something
seriously in D and GUI - it is a bit difficult to develop event driven
GUI without debugger. And also debugger will help you to understand
of what is going on there.

About documentation: I am personaly too bad in written English as you may see. I would appreciate for any help here.

And there is a forum on terrainformatica.com - you may ask there
or here. I am trying to read all topics with "GUI", "const"
and "outer methods" :) in subject lines.

My plan was to use Harmonia in real projects we were
starting at that moment. They would fuel development
and documentation too. But as I said before these projects
gone for C++. Projects were for 10 developers teams and
couple of D issues overweighted C++ pan.

If you mean "almost dead" as a status of development then
yes - its is not moving at the moment. Personally I am focused
on HTMLayout which is sister-ship of Harmonia.
But if someone will start new project in Harmonia
you may rely on help of myself and three more guys who know
it well.

Trying to be objective as possible....
main benefits of Harmonia:

1) Harmonia uses modern sinking/bubbling event dispatching
schema which is *extremely* flexible and powerful.
It dramaticly reduces amount of code needed to build complex UI.
Remeber, GUI is all about events.
There are no toolkits around using such schema except of
browsers - it is standard mechanism in DHTML.
sinking/bubbling minimizes need of event subscription
(listeners, delegates) chains which is just good for GC based
systems.

2) It has HTML-like engine inside which is used
as universal resource format, layout manager, etc.
The engine is compact, fast and most
"non-greedy" from known to me and is implemented
in architecture best suitable for GC environments.

3) It is really simple, compact and portable.

4) It was designed to be scriptable too.
   HTML + scripting give non-comparable
   flexibility to complex applications.

5) It has BSD style license.

6) It is implemented in D from the very beginning and
   it has "D soul", ta-da!  :)

Main problems:
1) Documentation of course.
2) Lack of commercial project using it at the moment.
   It is my personal opinion but Open Source style of
   development without commercial interest - is just nothing.
   QT, AWT, SWT, Swing are all purely commercial projects.

But these are problems common to all toolkits I guess.

-----------------
In my honest and educated opinion
basic principles of Harmonia are just more powerful in their
simplicity then in QT and Swing (these two use the same
all-in-one approach)

Andrew Fedoniouk.
http://terrainformatica.com

Andrew Fedoniouk wrote:
> "Hasan Aljudy" <hasan.aljudy@gmail.com> wrote in message news:dsbo8s$ird$1@digitaldaemon.com...
>> Andrew Fedoniouk wrote:
>>> "MicroWizard" <MicroWizard_member@pathlink.com> wrote in message news:dsba8t$78f$1@digitaldaemon.com...
>>>
>>>> Since D GUI framework is a new/old issue I have checked Harmonia (it is
>>>> on D
>>>> links page) and found it interesting ... and almost dead.
>>>
>>> And what is particularly "dead" there? :)
>>>
>>>
>>>> Does anybody know anything more about it ?
>>>>
>>>
>>> I know that there are three projects now using it for commercial projects. But have no idea what their status is now.
>>>
>>> I suspect that people are waiting for "D, feature complete" state
>>> as it's hard sometime to port from one D build to another.
>>> E.g. inner classes introduction in D took three hours to fix and more to
>>> verify.
>>>
>>> Andrew Fedoniouk.
>>> http://terrainformatica.com
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> I said this in another post, but I guess it would be more relevant here,
>> basically, I too looked at Harmonia and found it very interesting, but
>> there simply isn't any documentation! Well, there is a class hirarchy, but
>> that's about it!
>> It also doesn't work with the build tool, it needs make files!! C'mon,
>> make files are so old-school, no one should use them with D.
>> Finally, it seems abandoned!! There's no forum, no sign of anyone who
>> cares about it, no sign of any kind of community/users/whatever. No
>> updates seem to be ever made to the page? or the project itself?
>> What do you call that? I call it "almost dead"! (The reason that there's
>> an "almost" is because it seems in a usable state, so it's not completly
>> dead).
>>
>> I tried to play with it, but the makefile nonsense complicated it too much for me. Plus the no-documentation issue. I had no success with my attempts of playing with it.
> 
> I am personally not using makefiles too.
> There is a smile.dsw - workspace file for Microsoft Visual Studio 6.
> It allows to edit source, compile and run it in debuger - almost as C++
> project.
> I would recommend you to grab VS from somewhere if you want to do something
> seriously in D and GUI - it is a bit difficult to develop event driven
> GUI without debugger. And also debugger will help you to understand
> of what is going on there.
> 
> About documentation: I am personaly too bad in written English as you may see. I would appreciate for any help here.
> 
> And there is a forum on terrainformatica.com - you may ask there
> or here. I am trying to read all topics with "GUI", "const"
> and "outer methods" :) in subject lines.
> 
> My plan was to use Harmonia in real projects we were
> starting at that moment. They would fuel development
> and documentation too. But as I said before these projects
> gone for C++. Projects were for 10 developers teams and
> couple of D issues overweighted C++ pan.
> 
> If you mean "almost dead" as a status of development then
> yes - its is not moving at the moment. Personally I am focused
> on HTMLayout which is sister-ship of Harmonia.
> But if someone will start new project in Harmonia
> you may rely on help of myself and three more guys who know
> it well.
> 
> Trying to be objective as possible....
> main benefits of Harmonia:
> 
> 1) Harmonia uses modern sinking/bubbling event dispatching
> schema which is *extremely* flexible and powerful.
> It dramaticly reduces amount of code needed to build complex UI.
> Remeber, GUI is all about events.
> There are no toolkits around using such schema except of
> browsers - it is standard mechanism in DHTML.
> sinking/bubbling minimizes need of event subscription
> (listeners, delegates) chains which is just good for GC based
> systems.
> 
> 2) It has HTML-like engine inside which is used
> as universal resource format, layout manager, etc.
> The engine is compact, fast and most
> "non-greedy" from known to me and is implemented
> in architecture best suitable for GC environments.
> 
> 3) It is really simple, compact and portable.
> 
> 4) It was designed to be scriptable too.
>    HTML + scripting give non-comparable
>    flexibility to complex applications.
> 
> 5) It has BSD style license.
> 
> 6) It is implemented in D from the very beginning and
>    it has "D soul", ta-da!  :)
> 
> Main problems:
> 1) Documentation of course.
> 2) Lack of commercial project using it at the moment.
>    It is my personal opinion but Open Source style of
>    development without commercial interest - is just nothing.
>    QT, AWT, SWT, Swing are all purely commercial projects.
> 
> But these are problems common to all toolkits I guess.
> 
> -----------------
> In my honest and educated opinion
> basic principles of Harmonia are just more powerful in their
> simplicity then in QT and Swing (these two use the same
> all-in-one approach)

Sounds very interesting. I didn't know Harmonia had a BSD style license. Is it really possible to use this GUI without any proprietary libraries by terrainformatica?

How does this sinking/bubbling differ from signals/slots used in QT? I would like to help porting this to Linux, but unfortunately my knowledge on low level graphics on X is very little. Maybe some help with the docs?

The sample programs run quite well using the latest wine, but there are some problems: dialog.ask messes up with the buttons and scrolling the html page containers is a bit slow.


Jari-Matti

"Jari-Matti Mäkelä" <jmjmak@utu.fi.invalid> wrote in message news:dscj38$19m5$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> Andrew Fedoniouk wrote:
>> "Hasan Aljudy" <hasan.aljudy@gmail.com> wrote in message news:dsbo8s$ird$1@digitaldaemon.com...
>>> Andrew Fedoniouk wrote:
>>>> "MicroWizard" <MicroWizard_member@pathlink.com> wrote in message news:dsba8t$78f$1@digitaldaemon.com...
>>>>
>>>>> Since D GUI framework is a new/old issue I have checked Harmonia (it
>>>>> is
>>>>> on D
>>>>> links page) and found it interesting ... and almost dead.
>>>>
>>>> And what is particularly "dead" there? :)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Does anybody know anything more about it ?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I know that there are three projects now using it for commercial projects. But have no idea what their status is now.
>>>>
>>>> I suspect that people are waiting for "D, feature complete" state
>>>> as it's hard sometime to port from one D build to another.
>>>> E.g. inner classes introduction in D took three hours to fix and more
>>>> to
>>>> verify.
>>>>
>>>> Andrew Fedoniouk.
>>>> http://terrainformatica.com
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> I said this in another post, but I guess it would be more relevant here,
>>> basically, I too looked at Harmonia and found it very interesting, but
>>> there simply isn't any documentation! Well, there is a class hirarchy,
>>> but
>>> that's about it!
>>> It also doesn't work with the build tool, it needs make files!! C'mon,
>>> make files are so old-school, no one should use them with D.
>>> Finally, it seems abandoned!! There's no forum, no sign of anyone who
>>> cares about it, no sign of any kind of community/users/whatever. No
>>> updates seem to be ever made to the page? or the project itself?
>>> What do you call that? I call it "almost dead"! (The reason that there's
>>> an "almost" is because it seems in a usable state, so it's not completly
>>> dead).
>>>
>>> I tried to play with it, but the makefile nonsense complicated it too
>>> much
>>> for me. Plus the no-documentation issue. I had no success with my
>>> attempts
>>> of playing with it.
>>
>> I am personally not using makefiles too.
>> There is a smile.dsw - workspace file for Microsoft Visual Studio 6.
>> It allows to edit source, compile and run it in debuger - almost as C++
>> project.
>> I would recommend you to grab VS from somewhere if you want to do
>> something
>> seriously in D and GUI - it is a bit difficult to develop event driven
>> GUI without debugger. And also debugger will help you to understand
>> of what is going on there.
>>
>> About documentation: I am personaly too bad in written English as you may see. I would appreciate for any help here.
>>
>> And there is a forum on terrainformatica.com - you may ask there
>> or here. I am trying to read all topics with "GUI", "const"
>> and "outer methods" :) in subject lines.
>>
>> My plan was to use Harmonia in real projects we were
>> starting at that moment. They would fuel development
>> and documentation too. But as I said before these projects
>> gone for C++. Projects were for 10 developers teams and
>> couple of D issues overweighted C++ pan.
>>
>> If you mean "almost dead" as a status of development then
>> yes - its is not moving at the moment. Personally I am focused
>> on HTMLayout which is sister-ship of Harmonia.
>> But if someone will start new project in Harmonia
>> you may rely on help of myself and three more guys who know
>> it well.
>>
>> Trying to be objective as possible....
>> main benefits of Harmonia:
>>
>> 1) Harmonia uses modern sinking/bubbling event dispatching
>> schema which is *extremely* flexible and powerful.
>> It dramaticly reduces amount of code needed to build complex UI.
>> Remeber, GUI is all about events.
>> There are no toolkits around using such schema except of
>> browsers - it is standard mechanism in DHTML.
>> sinking/bubbling minimizes need of event subscription
>> (listeners, delegates) chains which is just good for GC based
>> systems.
>>
>> 2) It has HTML-like engine inside which is used
>> as universal resource format, layout manager, etc.
>> The engine is compact, fast and most
>> "non-greedy" from known to me and is implemented
>> in architecture best suitable for GC environments.
>>
>> 3) It is really simple, compact and portable.
>>
>> 4) It was designed to be scriptable too.
>>    HTML + scripting give non-comparable
>>    flexibility to complex applications.
>>
>> 5) It has BSD style license.
>>
>> 6) It is implemented in D from the very beginning and
>>    it has "D soul", ta-da!  :)
>>
>> Main problems:
>> 1) Documentation of course.
>> 2) Lack of commercial project using it at the moment.
>>    It is my personal opinion but Open Source style of
>>    development without commercial interest - is just nothing.
>>    QT, AWT, SWT, Swing are all purely commercial projects.
>>
>> But these are problems common to all toolkits I guess.
>>
>> -----------------
>> In my honest and educated opinion
>> basic principles of Harmonia are just more powerful in their
>> simplicity then in QT and Swing (these two use the same
>> all-in-one approach)
>
> Sounds very interesting. I didn't know Harmonia had a BSD style license. Is it really possible to use this GUI without any proprietary libraries by terrainformatica?

Harmonia does not require any external libraries.
Only one: There is only C imageio staticly linked library which includes
libjpeg and libpng/zlib and it would be good if you will include
your appreciation to their authors in about box of your application.

>
> How does this sinking/bubbling differ from signals/slots used in QT? I would like to help porting this to Linux, but unfortunately my knowledge on low level graphics on X is very little. Maybe some help with the docs?

Porting: http://www.terrainformatica.com/wiki/pmwiki.php?pagename=Harmonia.Porting

sinking/bubbling:
General principle explained here:
http://catcode.com/domcontent/events/capture.html

I am going to explain this with more details but so far:

Container widget (e.g. some Window) receives all
events targeted to its children and twice:
before child processing - sinking phase and
after child processing (if event was not consumed by child)

To be short: for "primordial" events like mouse/keyboard/focus
events you don't need signal/slots at all. For logical/secondary events
D delegates works extremely well and they are sufficient.

>
> The sample programs run quite well using the latest wine, but there are some problems: dialog.ask messes up with the buttons and scrolling the html page containers is a bit slow.

Didn't test it in Wine to be honest. Will take a look.

Andrew.

>
>
> Jari-Matti

Andrew Fedoniouk wrote:
> "Hasan Aljudy" <hasan.aljudy@gmail.com> wrote in message news:dsbo8s$ird$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> 
>>Andrew Fedoniouk wrote:
>>
>>>"MicroWizard" <MicroWizard_member@pathlink.com> wrote in message news:dsba8t$78f$1@digitaldaemon.com...
>>>
>>>
>>>>Since D GUI framework is a new/old issue I have checked Harmonia (it is on D
>>>>links page) and found it interesting ... and almost dead.
>>>
>>>
>>>And what is particularly "dead" there? :)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Does anybody know anything more about it ?
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>I know that there are three projects now using it for
>>>commercial projects. But have no idea what their status is now.
>>>
>>>I suspect that people are waiting for "D, feature complete" state
>>>as it's hard sometime to port from one D build to another.
>>>E.g. inner classes introduction in D took three hours to fix and more to verify.
>>>
>>>Andrew Fedoniouk.
>>>http://terrainformatica.com
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>I said this in another post, but I guess it would be more relevant here,
>>basically, I too looked at Harmonia and found it very interesting, but there simply isn't any documentation! Well, there is a class hirarchy, but that's about it!
>>It also doesn't work with the build tool, it needs make files!! C'mon, make files are so old-school, no one should use them with D.
>>Finally, it seems abandoned!! There's no forum, no sign of anyone who cares about it, no sign of any kind of community/users/whatever. No updates seem to be ever made to the page? or the project itself?
>>What do you call that? I call it "almost dead"! (The reason that there's an "almost" is because it seems in a usable state, so it's not completly dead).
>>
>>I tried to play with it, but the makefile nonsense complicated it too much for me. Plus the no-documentation issue. I had no success with my attempts of playing with it.
> 
> 
> I am personally not using makefiles too.
> There is a smile.dsw - workspace file for Microsoft Visual Studio 6.
> It allows to edit source, compile and run it in debuger - almost as C++ project.

OK, from the page:
<quote>
A smile.dsw file is provided there. It allows one to build and debug Harmonia and samples in MS VS 6 environment. ( It assumes that D compiler and tools located in c:/dmd and c:/dm folders respectively )
</quote>
how can I fix the path assumptions?
I have it in E:\dmd\dmd and E:\dmd\dm
I tried "search and replace in files" in VS, but didn't seem to work.


> I would recommend you to grab VS from somewhere if you want to do something
> seriously in D and GUI - it is a bit difficult to develop event driven
> GUI without debugger. And also debugger will help you to understand
> of what is going on there.

I used to have VS6, later I switched to 2003, now 2005!
I'm familiar with debuggers, and I know how important they are .. but tell that to Walter!!

> 
> About documentation: I am personaly too bad in written English
> as you may see. I would appreciate for any help here.

My english isn't perfect either .. but I'd be glad to write something once I wrap my head around it.

> 
> And there is a forum on terrainformatica.com - you may ask there
> or here. I am trying to read all topics with "GUI", "const"
> and "outer methods" :) in subject lines.

You mean this:
http://www.terrainformatica.com/forum/main.whtm
?


> 
> My plan was to use Harmonia in real projects we were
> starting at that moment. They would fuel development
> and documentation too. But as I said before these projects
> gone for C++. Projects were for 10 developers teams and
> couple of D issues overweighted C++ pan.

That sheds some light ...
Maybe you can tell us why C++ was favoured over D?

> 
> If you mean "almost dead" as a status of development then
> yes - its is not moving at the moment. Personally I am focused
> on HTMLayout which is sister-ship of Harmonia.
> But if someone will start new project in Harmonia
> you may rely on help of myself and three more guys who know
> it well.
<snip>

Greate! Where do you prefer I ask my questions?

"Hasan Aljudy" <hasan.aljudy@gmail.com> wrote in message news:dsdbik$1vqi$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> Andrew Fedoniouk wrote:
>> "Hasan Aljudy" <hasan.aljudy@gmail.com> wrote in message news:dsbo8s$ird$1@digitaldaemon.com...
>>
>>>Andrew Fedoniouk wrote:
>>>
>>>>"MicroWizard" <MicroWizard_member@pathlink.com> wrote in message news:dsba8t$78f$1@digitaldaemon.com...
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Since D GUI framework is a new/old issue I have checked Harmonia (it is
>>>>>on D
>>>>>links page) and found it interesting ... and almost dead.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>And what is particularly "dead" there? :)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Does anybody know anything more about it ?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>I know that there are three projects now using it for commercial projects. But have no idea what their status is now.
>>>>
>>>>I suspect that people are waiting for "D, feature complete" state
>>>>as it's hard sometime to port from one D build to another.
>>>>E.g. inner classes introduction in D took three hours to fix and more to
>>>>verify.
>>>>
>>>>Andrew Fedoniouk.
>>>>http://terrainformatica.com
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>I said this in another post, but I guess it would be more relevant here,
>>>basically, I too looked at Harmonia and found it very interesting, but
>>>there simply isn't any documentation! Well, there is a class hirarchy,
>>>but that's about it!
>>>It also doesn't work with the build tool, it needs make files!! C'mon,
>>>make files are so old-school, no one should use them with D.
>>>Finally, it seems abandoned!! There's no forum, no sign of anyone who
>>>cares about it, no sign of any kind of community/users/whatever. No
>>>updates seem to be ever made to the page? or the project itself?
>>>What do you call that? I call it "almost dead"! (The reason that there's
>>>an "almost" is because it seems in a usable state, so it's not completly
>>>dead).
>>>
>>>I tried to play with it, but the makefile nonsense complicated it too much for me. Plus the no-documentation issue. I had no success with my attempts of playing with it.
>>
>>
>> I am personally not using makefiles too.
>> There is a smile.dsw - workspace file for Microsoft Visual Studio 6.
>> It allows to edit source, compile and run it in debuger - almost as C++
>> project.
>
> OK, from the page:
> <quote>
> A smile.dsw file is provided there. It allows one to build and debug
> Harmonia and samples in MS VS 6 environment. ( It assumes that D compiler
> and tools located in c:/dmd and c:/dm folders respectively )
> </quote>
> how can I fix the path assumptions?
> I have it in E:\dmd\dmd and E:\dmd\dm
> I tried "search and replace in files" in VS, but didn't seem to work.

Open smile.dsp file in text editor and do search and
replace on c:\dmd\bin\dmd.exe to e:\dmd\bin\dmd.exe
You also need to do this for all other dsp files e.g. in
/samples/hello1.dsp

>
>
>> I would recommend you to grab VS from somewhere if you want to do
>> something
>> seriously in D and GUI - it is a bit difficult to develop event driven
>> GUI without debugger. And also debugger will help you to understand
>> of what is going on there.
>
> I used to have VS6, later I switched to 2003, now 2005!
> I'm familiar with debuggers, and I know how important they are .. but tell
> that to Walter!!

I am personally fine with current situation with debugging as soon as I can debug D in VS6. Not perfect but works most of the time.

>
>>
>> About documentation: I am personaly too bad in written English as you may see. I would appreciate for any help here.
>
> My english isn't perfect either .. but I'd be glad to write something once I wrap my head around it.

Thanks in advance!

>
>>
>> And there is a forum on terrainformatica.com - you may ask there
>> or here. I am trying to read all topics with "GUI", "const"
>> and "outer methods" :) in subject lines.
>
> You mean this:
> http://www.terrainformatica.com/forum/main.whtm
> ?

Yes. But I think that it is better to ask Walter to create
.gui news group.  As there are many GUI projects -
and many people will benefit from having such single place.
Many tasks are common.

>
>
>>
>> My plan was to use Harmonia in real projects we were
>> starting at that moment. They would fuel development
>> and documentation too. But as I said before these projects
>> gone for C++. Projects were for 10 developers teams and
>> couple of D issues overweighted C++ pan.
>
> That sheds some light ...
> Maybe you can tell us why C++ was favoured over D?

This horse was beatten to death but anyway
lack of "const/readonly" was the biggest.
It is just too hard for 10 people spreading all over the globe
to work without it.

As a consequence of lack of readonly is absence of string in D. There are very convenient arrays but wchar[] is not a string. String is an immutable char[]/wchar[].

It would be possible for us to use char[] as a string even without
readonly if we would have opAssign in structures - so we
will be able to create readonly envelope around char[].

Ideally string will be just const char[] with set of outer methods.

const is not only about strings - it helps in many other places
despite of the the fact that const in C++ is not a physical immutability.
It is intentional immutability and this is sufficient enough.

>
>>
>> If you mean "almost dead" as a status of development then
>> yes - its is not moving at the moment. Personally I am focused
>> on HTMLayout which is sister-ship of Harmonia.
>> But if someone will start new project in Harmonia
>> you may rely on help of myself and three more guys who know
>> it well.
> <snip>
>
> Greate! Where do you prefer I ask my questions?

I think the best place is news.digitalmars.com/gui if it will appear. D community is simply not in the position when it may allow to spread discussions on multiple sites.

Andrew.

Thank you all for the answers and thoughts.

(I personally hate VS since I work in VS2005 and .NET 2.0 and C# for half a year. Nothing finished. Promises only. Crap. So I want to avoid VS with every possible effort.)

When I wrote 'almost dead', I only wanted to compile anything on my own machine.
It is not possible yet (without acting as a developer of Harmonia :-)
Not a real problem, but delays the the start of commercial projects.

Now, when DWT seems to be THE possible D GUI, it would be very-very useful to have a real alternative. I think/hope DWT is good. And I also think that Harmonia could be good. But it needs terrible much effort to compare them.

Please create some documentation to Harmonia (perhaps DDOC would shorten the work progress) and I promise that I will try it and try to use it for smaller projects. Maybe other people will do the same.

And please make an automated command line base 'compile solution' to make possible for everyone to compile/run/try the demo. It must be very easy to do it. A single ZIP file with embedded directory structure and a START.BAT file will work for almost everyone.

And again. I'm very happy to see that the project developers does not think to abandone Harmonia. I'm looing forward to hear the good news!

Tamás Nagy
Hungary
tamas_AT_microwizard_DOT_hu

In article <dsdejd$21u7$1@digitaldaemon.com>, Andrew Fedoniouk says...
>
>
>"Hasan Aljudy" <hasan.aljudy@gmail.com> wrote in message news:dsdbik$1vqi$1@digitaldaemon.com...
>> Andrew Fedoniouk wrote:
>>> "Hasan Aljudy" <hasan.aljudy@gmail.com> wrote in message news:dsbo8s$ird$1@digitaldaemon.com...
>>>
>>>>Andrew Fedoniouk wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>"MicroWizard" <MicroWizard_member@pathlink.com> wrote in message news:dsba8t$78f$1@digitaldaemon.com...
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>Since D GUI framework is a new/old issue I have checked Harmonia (it is
>>>>>>on D
>>>>>>links page) and found it interesting ... and almost dead.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>And what is particularly "dead" there? :)
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>Does anybody know anything more about it ?
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>I know that there are three projects now using it for commercial projects. But have no idea what their status is now.
>>>>>
>>>>>I suspect that people are waiting for "D, feature complete" state
>>>>>as it's hard sometime to port from one D build to another.
>>>>>E.g. inner classes introduction in D took three hours to fix and more to
>>>>>verify.
>>>>>
>>>>>Andrew Fedoniouk.
>>>>>http://terrainformatica.com
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>I said this in another post, but I guess it would be more relevant here,
>>>>basically, I too looked at Harmonia and found it very interesting, but
>>>>there simply isn't any documentation! Well, there is a class hirarchy,
>>>>but that's about it!
>>>>It also doesn't work with the build tool, it needs make files!! C'mon,
>>>>make files are so old-school, no one should use them with D.
>>>>Finally, it seems abandoned!! There's no forum, no sign of anyone who
>>>>cares about it, no sign of any kind of community/users/whatever. No
>>>>updates seem to be ever made to the page? or the project itself?
>>>>What do you call that? I call it "almost dead"! (The reason that there's
>>>>an "almost" is because it seems in a usable state, so it's not completly
>>>>dead).
>>>>
>>>>I tried to play with it, but the makefile nonsense complicated it too much for me. Plus the no-documentation issue. I had no success with my attempts of playing with it.
>>>
>>>
>>> I am personally not using makefiles too.
>>> There is a smile.dsw - workspace file for Microsoft Visual Studio 6.
>>> It allows to edit source, compile and run it in debuger - almost as C++
>>> project.
>>
>> OK, from the page:
>> <quote>
>> A smile.dsw file is provided there. It allows one to build and debug
>> Harmonia and samples in MS VS 6 environment. ( It assumes that D compiler
>> and tools located in c:/dmd and c:/dm folders respectively )
>> </quote>
>> how can I fix the path assumptions?
>> I have it in E:\dmd\dmd and E:\dmd\dm
>> I tried "search and replace in files" in VS, but didn't seem to work.
>
>Open smile.dsp file in text editor and do search and
>replace on c:\dmd\bin\dmd.exe to e:\dmd\bin\dmd.exe
>You also need to do this for all other dsp files e.g. in
>/samples/hello1.dsp
>
>>
>>
>>> I would recommend you to grab VS from somewhere if you want to do
>>> something
>>> seriously in D and GUI - it is a bit difficult to develop event driven
>>> GUI without debugger. And also debugger will help you to understand
>>> of what is going on there.
>>
>> I used to have VS6, later I switched to 2003, now 2005!
>> I'm familiar with debuggers, and I know how important they are .. but tell
>> that to Walter!!
>
>I am personally fine with current situation with debugging as soon as I can debug D in VS6. Not perfect but works most of the time.
>
>>
>>>
>>> About documentation: I am personaly too bad in written English as you may see. I would appreciate for any help here.
>>
>> My english isn't perfect either .. but I'd be glad to write something once I wrap my head around it.
>
>Thanks in advance!
>
>>
>>>
>>> And there is a forum on terrainformatica.com - you may ask there
>>> or here. I am trying to read all topics with "GUI", "const"
>>> and "outer methods" :) in subject lines.
>>
>> You mean this:
>> http://www.terrainformatica.com/forum/main.whtm
>> ?
>
>Yes. But I think that it is better to ask Walter to create
>.gui news group.  As there are many GUI projects -
>and many people will benefit from having such single place.
>Many tasks are common.
>
>>
>>
>>>
>>> My plan was to use Harmonia in real projects we were
>>> starting at that moment. They would fuel development
>>> and documentation too. But as I said before these projects
>>> gone for C++. Projects were for 10 developers teams and
>>> couple of D issues overweighted C++ pan.
>>
>> That sheds some light ...
>> Maybe you can tell us why C++ was favoured over D?
>
>This horse was beatten to death but anyway
>lack of "const/readonly" was the biggest.
>It is just too hard for 10 people spreading all over the globe
>to work without it.
>
>As a consequence of lack of readonly is absence of string in D. There are very convenient arrays but wchar[] is not a string. String is an immutable char[]/wchar[].
>
>It would be possible for us to use char[] as a string even without
>readonly if we would have opAssign in structures - so we
>will be able to create readonly envelope around char[].
>
>Ideally string will be just const char[] with set of outer methods.
>
>const is not only about strings - it helps in many other places
>despite of the the fact that const in C++ is not a physical immutability.
>It is intentional immutability and this is sufficient enough.
>
>>
>>>
>>> If you mean "almost dead" as a status of development then
>>> yes - its is not moving at the moment. Personally I am focused
>>> on HTMLayout which is sister-ship of Harmonia.
>>> But if someone will start new project in Harmonia
>>> you may rely on help of myself and three more guys who know
>>> it well.
>> <snip>
>>
>> Greate! Where do you prefer I ask my questions?
>
>I think the best place is news.digitalmars.com/gui if it will appear. D community is simply not in the position when it may allow to spread discussions on multiple sites.
>
>Andrew.

> And please make an automated command line base 'compile solution' to make
> possible for everyone to compile/run/try the demo. It must be very easy to
> do
> it. A single ZIP file with embedded directory structure and a START.BAT
> file
> will work for almost everyone.
>

%harmonia%/build.bat
just in the root of the package.
will build harmonia and all samples and start them :)

http://www.terrainformatica.com/wiki/pmwiki.php?pagename=Harmonia.Build

change line
DC      = c:\dmd\bin\dmd.exe
in release.mak if you have dmd installed in different place.


Best regards,

Andrew Fedoniouk.
http://terrainformatica.com