[GEM Development] Re: GEM programming tutorial

[John Elliott]

: Another thing I'd like to see is an EASY and SIMPLE way to program in
: GEM.  The example source code in the SDK is huge and I think that it
: could be much simpler.  For example, a hello world program for the
: console is a few lines, but about 200 lines in GEM.  It'd be nice to
: see a programming library for GEM that simplifies this; IIRC it is
: even much easier to program in GTK+.  I'm not sure if it is complex if
: one is using PASCAL, but at least it seems complex in C.

  The complexity of saying hello is something of a red herring. If you want
Hello World, you can do one of them with something like:

GEMAIN()
{
	appl_init();
	form_alert(1, ADDR("[0][Hello World][ OK ]"));
	appl_exit();
}

  but the HELLO sample is a lot more complicated for good reason; it's 
demonstrating programming techniques that you might actually need to use
in GEM applications, such as opening a window, handling messages from it,
repainting bits that get trodden on, drawing in the window using VDI calls,
and the difference between a desk accessory and a standalone program.

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John Elliott           |BLOODNOK: "But why have you got such a long face?"
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