GINA RELEASE 2.3 ================ GINA (Generic Interactive Application) is an application framework based on Common Lisp and OSF/Motif to simplify the construction of graphical interactive applications. It consists of: o CLM, a language binding for OSF/Motif in Common Lisp. o the GINA application framework, a class library implemented in CLOS (the Common Lisp Object System). o the GINA interface builder, an interactive tool implemented with GINA to design Motif windows. To run GINA, you need OSF/Motif 1.1 or higher and a Common Lisp implementation with CLX, CLOS or PCL and processes (directly supported are Franz Allegro, Lucid, CMU CL and Symbolics Genera). GINA is publicly available under similar terms as the X Window System. The GINA 2.3 distribution consists of three files: CLM+GINA.README this file CLM2.3.tar.Z compressed tar file of CLM GINA2.3.tar.Z compressed tar file of GINA and the interface builder, including documentation These files reside on ftp.x.org (18.30.0.238) in /contrib ftp.gmd.de (129.26.8.90) in /gmd/gina How to ftp: ftp ftp.x.org [...] login: anonymous password: your-name@your-site [...] cd contrib get CLM+GINA.README binary get CLM2.3.tar.Z get GINA2.3.tar.Z quit Installation: 1. Create a directory for the sources and cd to this directory. 2. uncompress and unpack the GINA tar file. 3. make a directory for CLM 4. uncompress and unpack CLM in this directory 5. Follow the directions in clm/INSTALL and gina/INSTALL. There is a mailing list for gina users where problems can be discussed and new developments are announced. Send mail to gina-users-request@gmdzi.gmd.de if you want to be added to the list. If you want to contribute to the discussion, send mail to gina-users@gmdzi.gmd.de. If you have any questions concerning GINA, you can contact Mike Spenke, Project GINA (spenke@gmd.de) GMD (German National Research Center for Computer Science) P.O. Box 1316 W-5205 Sankt Augustin 1 Germany ============================================================================== CLM -- A Language Binding for Common Lisp and OSF/Motif Author: Andreas Baecker (baecker@gmd.de) CLM is a language binding for Common Lisp and OSF/Motif. It provides access to the functionality of the X Toolkit Intrinsics and the Motif convenience functions for Common Lisp. Client programs can use the OSF/Motif widget classes for their graphical user interface. Additionally, client programs can use the CLX graphics functions to draw into Motif widgets, especially into widgets of classes XmDrawingArea and XmDrawnButton. This functionality is only available when the CLX package was loaded before compiling CLM. CLM consists of three components: A CLM daemon, a CLM server, and a package of Common Lisp functions. Both the CLM daemon and server are implemented in ``C''. The CLM daemon runs on an arbitrary machine in the network and listens for Lisp processes requesting to use CLM. The CLM daemon forks CLM server processes which communicate with their Lisp processes over a network-transparent TCP/IP connection. The CLM server offers the X toolkit and the Motif functionality as remote procedure calls. The package of Common Lisp functions provides a high-level interface to these remote procedures. From the X server's point of view, the CLM server is an ordinary X client. The CLM server's functionality is to operate as a gateway between Motif and Common Lisp. The CLM functions send commands to the CLM server to create and modify widgets. The CLM server sends callbacks to the CLM application as a reaction to user actions suchs as moving a scrollbar's slider or pressing a push-button. A CLM application is a single (lightweight) process which runs inside a Lisp process and uses CLM. There may be an arbitrary number of concurrent CLM applications in a single Lisp process. The CLM daemon forks a CLM server process for each CLM application. This architecture protects concurrent processes from getting in trouble with the non-reentrant Motif code. The multiprocessing facility is an extension to Common Lisp and may not be available in all Lisp systems. In this case, it is only possible to run one CLM application per Lisp process. Lisp processes must not necessarily run on the same host as the CLM daemon. This allows CLM applications to run on hardware which is not capable of running X and Motif. CLM automatically chooses the right communication media for local and remote Lisp processes. Where supported, the CLM server may also be directly forked from the Lisp process without needing a daemon. The CLM server solution is very efficient and results in good performance at the user interface level. Redraw operations and geometry management operations are performed by the X Toolkit Intrinsics and the Motif widgets and are handled locally in the CLM server. User interaction like browsing through menu items is also handled by the Motif widgets and requires only the execution of C code. Interactions like clicking a push-button lead to the execution of callbacks and cause an interaction with Lisp. Communication time is typically small and doesn't cause any substantial delays. =============================================================================== GINA - the Generic Interactive Application Author: Mike Spenke (spenke@gmd.de) GINA is an object-oriented application framework written in Common Lisp and CLOS. It is based on CLM. The generic interactive application is executable and has a complete graphical user interface, but lacks any application-specific behaviour. New applications are created by defining subclasses of GINA classes and adding or overriding methods. The standard functionality of a typical application is already implemented in GINA. Only the differences to the standard application have to be coded. For example, commands for opening, closing, saving and creating new documents are already available in GINA. The programmer only has to write a method to translate the document contents into a stream of characters and vice versa. Motif widgets are encapsulated in CLOS objects. Instantiating an object implicitly creates a widget within OSF/Motif. Graphical output and direct manipulation with individual graphical feedback are also supported. The combination of framework concepts, the flexible Motif toolkit, and the interactive Lisp environment lead to an extremely powerful user interface development environment (UIDE). There are already a dozen demo applications including a Finder to start applications and documents, a simple text editor and a simple graphic editor, each consisting of only a few pages of code. GINA consists of three parts: the basic application framework (directory "gina"), a set of demo applications for the framework (directory "gina-demos") and an Interface Builder (directory "ib"). The GINA documentation is contained in the directory "documentation". The concepts of GINA are described in the file "gina-overview.ps". Further instructions and a roadmap to the available documentation can be found in the User Manual ("gina-manual.ps"). =============================================================================== An Interface Builder for GINA and OSF/Motif Author: Thomas Berlage (berlage@gmd.de) The IB can be used to design windows constructed from OSF/Motif components. It generates Lisp code to be used with GINA. Features: - Widgets can be dragged from a palette and dropped onto the work area. - Dialog boxes are constructed bottom-up by first creating the basic widgets like buttons and labels etc. and then grouping them together into RowColumns, Forms etc. - All relevant widget resources can be set interactively - Layout parameters for manager widgets are generated automatically. - Cut and paste is implemented for groups of widgets. - The output of the IB is a definition of a new composite widget class with the structure defined by the user. - Code for new dialog classes and constructor functions can be generated, saved, loaded and compiled. This code can be used with GINA applications. - Unlimited Undo/Redo for all commands