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<H1 ALIGN=RIGHT><A NAME="forms">E - Forms Compatibility</A></H1>
<a href="#fluid">Fluid</a> (the Fast Light User Interface Designer)
can read the .fd files put out by all versions of Forms and XForms
fdesign. However, it will mangle them a bit, but it prints a warning
message about anything it does not understand. Fluid cannot write
fdesign files, so you should save to a new name so you don't write
over the old one.
<p>You will need to edit your main code considerably to get it to link
with the output from fluid. If you are not interested in this you may
have more immediate luck with the forms compatability header,
<tt>&lt;FL/forms.H></tt>.
<p>You should be able to compile existing Forms or XForms source code
by changing the -I switch to your compiler so that the forms.h file
supplied with FLTK is included. Take a look at forms.h to see how it
works, but the basic trick is lots of inline functions.
Most of the XForms demo programs work without changes.
<p>Although FLTK was designed to be compatable with the GL Forms library
(version 0.3 or so), XForms has bloated severely and it's interface is
X specific. Therefore, XForms compatability is no longer a goal of
FLTK. Compatability was limited to things that were free, or that
would add code that would not be linked in if the feature is unused.
I did not add anything that would make the FLTK widgets bigger, or that
used X types as arguments.
<p>To use any new features of FLTK, you should rewrite your code to not
use the inline functions and instead use "pure" FLTK. This
will make it a lot cleaner and make it easier to figure out how to
call the FLTK functions. Unfortunately this conversion is harder than I
expeceted and even our inhouse code still uses forms.H a lot.
<h2>Problems you will encounter</h2>
<ul>
<p><li>Many parts of XForms use X-specific structures like XEvent in
their interface. I did not emulate these! Unfortunately these
features (such as the "canvas" widget) are needed by most large
programs. You will need to rewrite these to use FLTK subclasses.
<p><li><a href=Fl_Free.html>Fl_Free</a> widgets emulate the <i>old</i>
Forms "free" widget. It may be useful for porting programs that
change the handle() function on widgets, but you will still need to
rewrite things.
<P><li><a href=Fl_Timer.html>Fl_Timer</a> widgets are provided to
emulate the XForms timer. These work, but are quite inefficient
and inaccurate compared to using Fl::add_timeout().
<p><li><i>All instance variables are hidden.</i>
If you directly refer to the x, y, w, h, label, or other fields of
your Forms widgets you will have to add empty parenthesis after each
reference. The easiest way to do this is to globally replace "->x"
with "->x()", etc. Replace "boxtype" with box().
<p><li>const char* arguments to most FLTK methods are simply stored, while
Forms would strdup() the passed string. This is most noticable with the
label of widgets. Your program must always pass static data such as a
string constant or malloc'd buffer to label(). If you are using
labels to display program output you may want to try the <a
href=Fl_Output.html>Fl_Output</a> widget.
<p><li>The default fonts and sizes are matched to the older GL version of
Forms, so all labels will draw somewhat larger than an XForms program
does.
<p><li>fdesign outputs a setting of a "fdui" instance variable to the main
window. I did not emulate this because I wanted all instance
variables to be hidden. You can store the same information in the
user_data() field of a window. To do this,
search through the fdesign output for all occurances
of "->fdui" and edit to use "->user_data()" instead. This will
require casts and is not trivial.
<p><li>The prototype for the functions passed to fl_add_timeout() and
fl_set_idle_callback() callback are different.
<p><li><b>All the following XForms calls are missing:</b><p>
<li><code>FL_VERSION, FL_REVISION</code>, fl_library_version()
<li><code>FL_RETURN_DBLCLICK</code> (use Fl::event_clicks())
<li>fl_add_signal_callback()
<li>fl_set_form_atactivate() & fl_set_form_atdeactivate()
<li>fl_set_form_property()
<li>fl_set_app_mainform(), fl_get_app_mainform()
<li>fl_set_form_minsize(), fl_set_form_maxsize()
<li>fl_set_form_event_cmask(), fl_get_form_event_cmask()
<li>fl_set_form_dblbuffer(), fl_set_object_dblbuffer() (use an
Fl_Double_Window instead)
<li>fl_adjust_form_size()
<li>fl_register_raw_callback()
<li>fl_set_object_bw(), fl_set_border_width()
<li>fl_set_object_resize(), fl_set_object_gravity()
<li>fl_set_object_shortcutkey()
<li>fl_set_object_automatic()
<li>fl_get_object_bbox() (maybe FLTK should do this)
<li>fl_set_object_prehandler(), fl_set_object_posthandler()
<li>fl_enumerate_fonts()
<li>Most drawing functions
<li>fl_set_coordunit() (FLTK uses pixels all the time)
<li>fl_ringbell()
<li>fl_gettime()
<li>fl_win*() (all these functions)
<li>fl_initialize(argc,argv,x,y,z) ignores last 3 arguments
<li>fl_read_bitmapfile(), fl_read_pixmapfile()
<li>fl_addto_browser_chars()
<li>FL_MENU_BUTTON just draws normally
<li>fl_set_bitmapbutton_file(), fl_set_pixmapbutton_file()
<li>FL_CANVAS objects
<li>FL_DIGITAL_CLOCK (comes out analog)
<li>fl_create_bitmap_cursor(), fl_set_cursor_color()
<li>fl_set_dial_angles()
<li>fl_show_oneliner()
<li>fl_set_choice_shortcut(a,b,c)
<li>command log
<li>Only some of file selector is emulated
<li>FL_DATE_INPUT
<li>fl_pup*() (all these functions)
<li>textbox object (should be easy but I had no sample programs)
<li>xyplot object
</ul>
<h2>Additional notes for porting old Forms programs</h2>
<p>These notes were written for porting programs written with the
older GL version of Forms. Most of these problems are the same ones
encountered when going from old Forms to XForms:
<h4>Does not go into background</h4>
The GL library always forked when you created the first window, unless
"foreground()" was called. FLTK acts like "foreground()" is called all
the time. If you really want the fork behavior do "if (fork())
exit(0)" right at the start of your program.
<h4>You cannot use GL windows or fl_queue</h4>
<P>If a Forms (not XForms) program if you wanted your own window for
displaying things you would create a GL window and draw in it,
periodically calling Forms to check if the user hit buttons on the
panels. If the user did things to the GL window, you would find this
out by having the value FL_EVENT returned from the call to Forms.
<p>None of this works with FLTK. Nor will it compile, the necessary
calls are not in the interface.
<p>You have to make a subclass of <a
href=Fl_Gl_Window.html>Fl_Gl_Window</a> and write a draw() method and
handle() method. This may require anywhere from a trivial to a major
rewrite. See the example program <a href=shape.C.html>shape.C</a> for
how this is structured.
<p>If you draw into the overlay planes you will have to also write a
draw_overlay() routine and call redraw_overlay() on the gl window.
<p>One easy way to hack your program so it works is to make the draw()
and handle() methods on your window set some static variables, storing
what event happened. Then in the main loop of your program, call
Fl::wait() and then check these variables, acting on them as
though they are events read from fl_queue.
<h4>You must use OpenGL to draw everything</h4>
<p>The file &lt;FL/gl.h> defines replacements for a lot of gl calls,
translating them to OpenGL. There are much better translators
available that you might want to investigate.
<h4>You cannot make Forms subclasses</h4>
Programs that call fl_make_object or directly setting the handle
routine will not compile. You have to rewrite them to use a subclass
of Fl_Widget. It is important to note that the handle() method is not
exactly the same as the handle() function of Forms. Where a Forms
handle() returned non-zero, your handle() must call do_callback().
And your handle() must return non-zero if it "understood" the event.
<p>An attempt has been made to emulate the "free" widget. This
appears to work quite well. It may be quicker to modify your subclass
into a "free" widget, since the "handle" functions match.
<p>If your subclass draws into the overlay you are in trouble and will
have to rewrite things a lot.
<h4>You cannot use &lt;device.h></h4>
If you have written your own "free" widgets you will probably get a
lot of errors about "getvaluator". You should substitute:
<table>
<tr><td align=center>Forms <td align=center>FLTK
<tr><td>MOUSE_X <td>Fl::event_x_root()
<tr><td>MOUSE_Y<td> Fl::event_y_root()
<tr><td>LEFTSHIFTKEY,RIGHTSHIFTKEY<td> Fl::event_shift()
<tr><td>CAPSLOCKKEY<td> Fl::event_capslock()
<tr><td>LEFTCTRLKEY,RIGHTCTRLKEY<td> Fl::event_ctrl()
<tr><td>LEFTALTKEY,RIGHTALTKEY<td> Fl::event_alt()
<tr><td>MOUSE1,RIGHTMOUSE<td> Fl::event_state()&(1<<10)
<tr><td>MOUSE2,MIDDLEMOUSE<td> Fl::event_state()&(1<<9)
<tr><td>MOUSE3,LEFTMOUSE<td> Fl::event_state()&(1<<8)
</table>
<p>Anything else in getvaluator and you are on your own...
<h4>Font numbers are different</h4>
The "style" numbers have been changed because I wanted to insert
bold-italic versions of the normal fonts. If you use Times, Courier,
or Bookman to display any text you will get a different font out of
FLTK. If you are really desperate to fix this use the following code:<ul>
<pre>
fl_font_name(3,"*courier-medium-r-no*");
fl_font_name(4,"*courier-bold-r-no*");
fl_font_name(5,"*courier-medium-o-no*");
fl_font_name(6,"*times-medium-r-no*");
fl_font_name(7,"*times-bold-r-no*");
fl_font_name(8,"*times-medium-i-no*");
fl_font_name(9,"*bookman-light-r-no*");
fl_font_name(10,"*bookman-demi-r-no*");
fl_font_name(11,"*bookman-light-i-no*");
</pre></ul>
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