SPUG:wxPerl

Marc M. Adkins Marc.M.Adkins at Doorways.org
Tue Jan 14 14:15:58 CST 2003


> Is Gtk-Perl 0.7008 (the latest) supposed to work with Gnome 2?

Just a note...I responded directly (to the wrong person) the other day...

	Are you aware of wxPerl?  The wxWindows library works with Gnome
	(wxWindows v3 will work directly with X-Windows, but currently Gnome
	is required for X platforms) and Windows.  wxPerl is a Perl binding
	for wxWindows.  Both have some history and seem to work swell.

Having checked the wxWindows site, the list of target platforms is:

	Windows 95/98/ME,
	Windows NT/2K/XP,
	Linux/Unix with the GTK+ toolkit (or plain X11, or Motif), and
	MacOS

Controls missing from specific target platforms are implemented as part of
the package so the playing field is (supposedly) pretty much level.

wxWindows itself is C++.  I know of bindings to Perl (wxPerl) and Python
(wxPython).

wxWindows is open-source.  The license is a L-GPL variant.

I just built wxPerl for:

      Windows 2000
      ActiveState 5.8 (804)
      VC++ 6 SP4
      wxWindows 2.4
      wxPerl 0.12

The instructions in docs/install.txt (wxPerl source) are important (must
build wxWindows as DLL and so forth).  In addition, for wxPerl 0.12, it is
necessary to change files:

	ext/html/Html.xs
	ext/xrc/XRC.xs
	ext/filesys/FS.xs

In each file there is a set of #undef statements at the beginning.  At the
end of each such block add:

	#undef Mkdir

Apparently wxPerl 0.13 will be accompanied by an ActiveState 5.8 binary, so
installation will become painless (again).

If you build it there are sample programs demonstrating all of the dialogs
and so forth.  I just ran through them all with my 5.8/0.12 build and they
work as always.  On Windows this is all pretty impressive.  On *NIX and
other OSs I don't know, but would be interested in feedback.

The only drawback I can think of is that wxWindows uses a Windows-like
programming paradigm, so people with a lot of experience with GTK/X/Tk and
so forth might have more to learn.  On the other hand, the 'Hello, world'
program is quite simple in Perl and isn't as Windows-centric as coding
directly in C++.

For more information:

	http://www.wxwindows.org
	http://wxperl.sourceforge.net/

mma




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