Re: [platform-swt-dev] Some newbie-questions about swt

[David_Whiteman@xxxxxxx]

wow... i am honored to be important enough to be quoted <g>
--
David Whiteman
OTI Raleigh
david_whiteman@xxxxxxx

Carolyn_MacLeod@xxxxxxx Sent by: platform-swt-dev-admin@xxxxxxxxxxx 05/18/2002 02:36 PM Please respond to platform-swt-dev

To:        platform-swt-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx         cc:                 Subject:        Re: [platform-swt-dev] Some newbie-questions about swt

Firstly, this is not the place to ask user questions - this email list is 
for people discussing the implementation of SWT.
The place to ask user questions is on the eclipse newsgroup.
There are a lot of people monitoring the newsgroup, and your chances of an 
answer are higher.
To set up your news reader to look at the eclipse newsgroup, use this 
address:
       news://news.eclipse.org/eclipse.tools
You need a password to access this newsgroup, so go to:
       http://www.eclipsecorner.org/newsgroups/index.html
to request one.

Having said that, however, here are some answers to a few of your 
questions:

>1. I dindnt find very much documentation about SWT. Where can I find 
them?

I will paste my answer to someone else's "where do I start" question at 
the end of this email.

>2. Are there any gui-builders avaible wich have support for swt?

There is no GUI builder that comes with eclipse, however there are several 
people outside of the eclipse project who are working on GUI builders for 
SWT. To read about them, go to the eclipse search page:
http://www.eclipsecorner.org/search/search.cgi
and first search for "GUI Builder", then search for "VCE".

>3. Can I use other widget-libraries than MOTIF on the linux-platform?
>e.g. GTK1,2,QT or something else)

You should be able to use GTK2 *after* the code freeze on Tuesday May 21, 
2002. The GTK 1 port is no longer available. As for QT, I will quote David 
Whiteman from the eclipse newsgroup:
"There is a limited SWT that is in development for the Qt/Embedded platform 
- it contains just enough of SWT to
be able to support our Personal Configuration product (basically AWT for 
the J9 VM)."

>4. Does gcj ( a native java-compiler) supports SWT? And how can that be 
>done? Are there any docus about that avaible?

I don't know much about gcj, but if you use the eclipse search, you will 
find that some people have tried building some of eclipse using gcj. 
Please do the search and draw your own conclusions.

>5. How hard is it to code using SWT? Is it harder that swing?

I will leave that question up to you <g>.

Here is your answer to question 1.

1) Source code. Download the eclipse SDK from the downloads page and 
install it. You will find SWT under 
eclipse/plugins/org.eclipse.swt.
The source for SWT (in recent drops) is in: 
eclipse/plugins/org.eclipse.swt.<your windowing system>_<version>/ws/<your 
windowing system>/swtsrc.zip 
To look at it you need to either extract it, or import it into eclipse and 
set the .classpath properly for your windowing system platform.

2) Examples. Download the eclipse example plugins from the downloads page 
and install them in the same place as your eclipse SDK. You will then find 
the SWT examples in the plugins directory in the following directories 
(add the _<version> to each directory name):
- org.eclipse.swt.examples
- org.eclipse.swt.examples.controls
- org.eclipse.swt.examples.layouts
- org.eclipse.swt.examples.paint
- org.eclipse.swt.examples.launcher
- org.eclipse.swt.examples.ole.win32 (Windows only)
Restart eclipse, and you can run these examples from Perspective->Show 
View->Other... SWT Examples. If you run the SWT Example Launcher, you can 
see a description of each example, as well as run it.
To look at the example source code you need to either extract from the 
appropriate <example>src.zip, or import the zip into eclipse (after 
importing the swt source and setting the .classpath properly for your 
windowing system platform).

3) Documentation.
3a) The Javadoc for SWT is here:
http://www.eclipse.org/documentation/html/plugins/org.eclipse.platform.doc.isv/topics_Reference.html
The SWT package names all begin with org.eclipse.swt...

3b) The Programmer's Guide for Eclipse is here (in Adobe Acrobat Reader's 
PDF format):
http://www.eclipse.org/documentation/pdf/org.eclipse.platform.doc.isv.pdf
Look in the chapter called "Standard Widget Toolkit"

4) The SWT articles are useful for a more in-depth look at certain topics:
http://www.eclipse.org/articles/index.html  (scroll down to see the SWT articles)
However, you will probably want to read the article on Layouts early on: 
http://www.eclipse.org/articles/Understanding%20Layouts/Understanding%20Layouts.htm 
If you will be using the StyledText widget, be sure to read: 
http://www.eclipse.org/articles/StyledText%201/article1.html 
And if you will be using fonts, colors, cursors, or images, be sure to 
read: 
http://www.eclipse.org/articles/swt-design-2/swt-design-2.html

5) If you have specific questions: 
- first see if the answer is in the SWT FAQ: 
http://dev.eclipse.org/viewcvs/index.cgi/%7Echeckout%7E/platform-swt-home/faq.html 
- then see if the answer is in the SWT "tips & tricks" link: 
http://dev.eclipse.org/viewcvs/index.cgi/%7Echeckout%7E/platform-swt-home/dev.html#snippits 
- then search the eclipse newsgroup to see if someone has already asked 
the question, because it is quite likely that there is already an answer 
out there, typically with an example. 
- try using the eclipse search facility to search mailing lists and 
newsgroups: 
http://www.eclipse.org/search/search.cgi 
- if you do not find an answer anywhere, then you can ask your question on 
the eclipse newsgroup 

6) If you want to report a bug against SWT, go to the Bugzilla database 
at: 
http://dev.eclipse.org/bugs/ 
- first search to see if the bug was already reported 
- if it was already reported and it is not fixed yet, you can add your 
email address to the CC list to track the status of the bug 
- if it was not already reported, then you can open a new bug report 
against the "Platform" product, "SWT" component. Be sure to say what 
operating system you are running on, and which drop of eclipse you are 
using. Also, if there is a stack trace in your workspace/.metadata/.log 
file, please include that. Also, please include example code if possible, 
and steps to show the problem. 

7) If you want to see a bit of the "project-development side" of SWT, go 
to this link:
http://dev.eclipse.org/viewcvs/index.cgi/%7Echeckout%7E/platform-swt-home/main.html 
and subscribe to the platform-swt-dev mailing list, but read this page 
first: 
http://www.eclipse.org/mail/index.html 
and do not send user questions to the mailing list.

8) If you actually want to try to develop some of SWT, then look through 
the archives of the SWT mailing list first to see what has been said, how 
to connect to the repository and set up for developing SWT, etc.

Carolyn






Clemens Eisserer <Linuxhippy@xxxxxx>
Sent by: platform-swt-dev-admin@xxxxxxxxxxx
01/17/2000 06:41 AM
Please respond to platform-swt-dev

 
        To:     platform-swt-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
        cc: 
        Subject:        [platform-swt-dev] Some newbie-questions about swt

Hi!

I'm very new at SWT so may I ask a some stupid questions ;-)...

1. I want to use SWT for my apps, because I dont like swing at all. Its 
slow and I hate the fading-feeling...
   I dindnt find very much documentation about SWT. I'm only a 
Java-newbie and so I need some easy docs..Where can I find them

2. Are there any gui-builders avaible wich have support for swt? I dont 
want to code all my guis at hand ;-)

3. Can I use other widget-libraries than MOTIF on the linux-platform? 
Motif looks so old and it isnt beutiful at all. (e.g. GTK1,2,QT or 
something else)

4. Does gcj ( a native java-compiler) supports SWT? And how can that be 
done? Are there any docus about that avaible?

5. How hard is it to code using SWT? Is it harder that swing?


Thanks for your patient, Clemens


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