Using Harbour+WVG +xMate - Part III

As you may recall from Part II, using Pritpal Bedi's Harbour Read to use Distro, I had successfully built FAS4WVG, a pure Win32 executable which does not run in a Command (DOS) Window.

Now, lets guify the DISPBOX() surrounding Main Menu & Messages by replacing

dispbox( 1, 0, 3, 79, B_DOUBLE )
dispbox( 22, 0, 24, 79, B_DOUBLE )

with :-

Wvg_BoxGroupRaised( 2, 1, 2, 77)
Wvg_BoxGroupRaised( 23, 1, 23, 77)

// Instruct GT to Repaint the Screen with GUI elements
Wvt_InvalidateRect( 0, 0, maxrow(), maxcol() )

The result is as follows :-


I then changed the default color to GREY to accentuate the 3D look and feel and added a
Wvg_BoxGroupRaised( 4, 1, 20, 77) for a centralised work area



You can see the DBEDIT() within a Boxraised(4,1,20,77) as follows :-


Same DBEDIT() but within a WVG_BoxRecessed

Same DBEDIT() but within a WVG_BoxRecessed() & WVG_BoxGroupRaised()



Next on Part IV

Using Harbour+WVG +xMate - Part II

If you recall from my previous article, this is what we got after recompiling with the Harbour Ready to Use Distro by Pritpal Bedi :-


Pretty disappointing, huh ! What you are looking at is a true 32 bit Windows application in a DOS window but how to convince your clients that this is indeed a Win32 executable ? This is where Pritpal Bedi comes to the rescue with his WVG library.

So where do we start to guify our Win32 'DOS looking" executable ?

This is what I have done, JUST add right after MAIN()

HB_GTSYS()

where

Function HB_GTSYS()
REQUEST HB_GT_WVG_DEFAULT
REQUEST HB_GT_WVT
REQUEST HB_GT_WGU
Return NIL

That's it !


Notice that the caption now shows FAS4WVG and not the Dos Prompt + path to FAS4WVG.
Hip... Hip... Hooray, no more DOS window !

Next on Part III

New Release of Harbour Ready to Use

CCH : A message posted by Pritpal Bedi on my Guest Book


Hello Everybody

Please download latest ready-to-use Harbour distro from
www.vouch.info/downloads/HarbourDev_10824_2009-04-09.exe

It fixes few mis-managements in _10523_ distro released in March.

Please note that Open Watcom binaries produces unresolved externals
with demowvg.prg. Rest all is fine.

I wanted to include QT implementation also but has deferred that
decision because still I am unable to find a way to compile demoqt.prg
through xMate PLUS a surprise that is swcheduled to be disclosed probably
next week...

Note; this distro includes PellesC compiler V 5.0 besides MINGW’s.
This has been made possible as Pelles Onius kindly consented to
include it in this distro.

Regards
Pritpal Bedi

PS; Note this is not an official release. It is an effort to ease out
migration to Harbour for newbies.

Using Harbour+WVG +xMate - Part I

Using Harbour+HMG or HMG Extended is great but I still needed to provide a solution to quite a number of my existing users who prefer to use our apps in text mode but yet Win32 ready.These users just love to use the keyboard and loathe to use the mouse :-)

I did consider using WVW but since Budyanto does not have time to update his great GUI library, I decided to take a serious look at Harbour + WVG.

After playing with the xMate that came with Pritpal Bedi's Ready to use Harbour Distro, I finally managed to compile and build a Harbour+WVG version of FAS4DOS codenamed FAS4WVG. This is what I have done :-

1. Installed Pritpal's Ready to Use Harbour which resulted in a folder being created ie
c:\harbour_dev with the following sub-folders
dev_exes
dev_libs
dev_projects
dev_sources
harbour
mingw
xmate

2. I then copied the previously converted FAS4DOS codes (from 5.2e to xHarbour) into a new folder FAS4WVG under the dev_projects folder. I did this in order to save time as all UNRESOLVED EXTERNALS had already been dealt with as per my previous articles "Migrating from CA-Clipper 5.2e to xHarbour Part I, II & III "

Please note that there is also a default demowvg folder already there for your reference.

3. Moving to the xMate Directory, I launched xMate and created a new Project


4. What is important here is to choose
a) Project Type, default Executable
b) Environment (wvgMINGW, wvgBCC, wvgMSC, wvgWATCOM)
Nb. Only MINGW comes with this Pritpal's Distro
c) You may also choose to Import based on a Clipper Blinker/Exospace link script

5. Click OK and
a) Input Project name, in my case FAS4WVG
b) Input HOME Folder (where your project files reside)
c) Add Project Files


c) Save and both the XMate Editor and Project Manager are launched


6. Under the xMate Project Manager, you can choose to :-
a) Build Project
b) Build and Launch Project
c) Rebuild Project
d) Rebuild and Launch Project
e) Launch Project
f) Compile single source
g) Compile all sources

7. I then clicked (b) and starting getting errors mainly due to ambiguous references relating to getlists which I resolved by adding LOCAL getlist:={}

8. Then, I got the 'FATAL : Unknown Error - Check Output Console'

9. I then clicked the icon that had a ? over it and saw that I had a few errors such as
a) Unresolved external references
b) Duplicate decalarations

By checking to my original Blinker Link Script, I realised that I had inadvertently left out a prg whilst including a couple of redundant prgs.

10. Once resolved , bingo, FAS4WVG was finally built and launched


Next to add GUI features ...

What is WinDock ?

CCH : Just discovered WinDock which was recommended by Ron Pinkas at comp.lang.clipper

From : http://www.roessler-software.de/e195/e264/index_ger.html

Win32 API for Harbour and xHarbour

WinDock is a clip4win-compatible Win-API for Harbour and xHarbour. WinDock includes various helpful functions. In addition, the WinDock-Toolkit is a large Class-Library including a huge variety of features, such as App-Classes, Browser, TreeView, Tabbed-Dialogs, Nettable, Edit Masks and much more...

Roessler Software started developing software with dbase in 1987. By the time when John Skelton offered his first version of Clip4Win, we ported our Time-Control Application using Clipper 5.2d and Clip4Win to Windows (16-Bit). As we were lacking a lot of functionality, we started to develop a Library called Clip2Win using MSC.

Over the years, we acquired a lot of inside knowledge about Windows, so that in 1994, we started teaching others to develop software using Clip4Win and Clip2Win. When John added a class-library to Clip4Win, we tested it thoroughly, but we had major problems using it. As a result, we developed a class-library called OO4WIN. A Mail-library with classes for smtp, ftp, etc. followed.

In 2003 we conducted trials with C4W32 and Harbour. After solving a couple of problems, our libraries started working fine with Harbour. But since John only supported Harbour and MSC 6.0, we began to develop our own WinAPI for Harbour and we soon achieved very satisfying results.

Further, we decided to offer our newly created WinAPI as open source using the same license-model as Harbour (LGPL), and named it WinDock - as in a Dock for Windows in the Harbour.

Investing more time into WinDock, we were able to make it compatible to xHarbour, and besides MSC 6.0, you may also use MINGW for compilation, now.
WinDock includes most functions of the 32-Bit Microsoft WinAPI and all functions of our former Clip2Win-Library.

Our OO4WIN Class-Library is also offered as open source under the dual-licence-model (such as mySQL).

The OO4WIN Library has been renamed to WinDock-ToolKit (TK) and is also available for Clip4Win (16-Bit and 32-Bit).

However, WinDock itself is not available for 16-Bit environments - please use Clip4Win 4.0 instead.

We hope that many developers will be happy with WinDock, the WinDock-ToolKit and the functionality they provide and will hence spread the word to make our community grow and help our product getting better.


Thank You.
Your Roessler Software Development Team

Siegbert, Dominik, Jan, Stephan, Kai, René, Manuel

What is xMate ?

CCH: I finally found time to start playing with Pritpal Bedi's Harbour + WVG. His distro came with xMate. In the beginning, I was a bit stumped on how to use xMate and then I clicked on Online Manua and this is what I got :-

xMate is intended to be primarily used with [x]Harbour and Clipper compiler, to create, manage, update, and build the software development projects.

It is aimed at building Windows oriented software, be it GUI or console applications and libraries.

Getting started fast

You can start creating and managing your new and existing projects within seconds, provided that your compilers are installed in default directories with the default directory tree and all necessary files are in places.

Initially you just need to verify if the environments that you have are suited to your project, and that the installations paths as described in the environment reflect the installation on your computer. This and potentially any further maintenance of the environments needs to be done only once. When done, you will never need to return to those more technical aspects of xMate.

The sample environments that xMate is shipped with, should be ready to use unaltered on most systems. Please refer to the Environment Configuration topic for detailed help of the xMate environments.

Once the environments are confirmed. All you need to do is to provide the name and location Of your project (s) and drop all the project files into the project configuration window, click on“Build and Run” button, and your application will come to life in seconds.

It is that simple.

The big advantage of xmate is that its project and environment files are portable, and can be transferred from one PC to another, together with the project files, and continue working correctly.

Setting Environment Variables in Windows

CCH : Recently, I had to manually add path to attempt to compile a xHarbour+GTWVW program sent to me by Sudip and I thought this article would be useful to all of us :-

Extracted from http://www.cs.usask.ca/~wew036/latex/env.html

This page explains how to set environment variables in Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP.

• In Windows 95/98/ME, append these lines to the end of your c:\autoexec.bat using notepad, and then reboot your computer:

  
  set HOME=d:\home
  set DISPLAY=localhost:0
  set PATH=.;d:\cygwin\bin;d:\cygwin\usr\bin;d:\cygwin\usr\local\bin;D:\cygwin\usr\X11R6\bin;d:\gs\gs8.00\bin;d:\gs\gs8.00\lib;%PATH%
  
  

• In Windows NT/2000/XP, follow the following steps:
  1. Open Control Panel
  2. Click the System icon and the window pops up (screenshot)
  3. Go to the Advanced pane (screenshot)
  4. Click the Environment Variables button (screenshot)
  5. There are two seperated windows showing two sets of environment variables. Select the "new" button for the upper window to create a new environment variable (screenshot). Select the "Edit" button for the upper window to edit an existing environment variable. Probably you need to create the "HOME" and "DISPLAY" variable, and edit the "PATH" variable.
  6. The value of "DISPLAY" should be localhost:0
  7. The value of "HOME" should be the directory name where you want to put your .profile file. For example: d:\home.
  8. You should add these values to the beginning of your "PATH" variable:

     .;d:\cygwin\bin;d:\cygwin\usr\bin;d:\cygwin\usr\local\bin;D:\cygwin\usr\X11R6\bin;d:\gs\gs8.00\bin;d:\gs\gs8.00\lib