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Help For Making a eCenter/xCenter Widget

Started by Saijin_Naib, 2008.03.30, 20:40:52

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Saijin_Naib

Hi people, I got bored and I figured I'd like to try and make something for eCS, instead of just making suggestions.

I want to start with making a different CPU load monitor widget for eCenter/xCenter. I dislike the horizontally oriented one because A) it takes up way too much space and B) it can get difficult to read with SMP (2 cores) and 4 series of lines being drawn all over it.

So, I first need some help getting set up. I need the xCenter/eCenter sources for the widgets so I can build off the base code the supply, and I need help choosing and picking up a build environment so I can compile the widget to a .dll. I suppose I'll also need help actually making the widget function as well, but yeah. If anyone is willing to help me along, that would be great!

Thanks

Andi

Sources for xworkplace and various widgets are on netlabs. There's a mailing list on gmane.org (xworkplace.devel?). But don't ask trivial questions (like I do :-). There's a progref.inf file which comes with the xworkplace sources which cover all beginers questions, and there are sometime progref.inf files for a special widget.

Usually you need VAC 3.08, but it is possible to do it with VAC3.65, like I do. If you want a multi threading widget, you have to use 3.65, otherwise it would be easier to start with 3.08. So grab the sources from netlabs, read the progref and take the sample widget (or one which is similar to that what you like to do) as skeleton.

Saijin_Naib

#2
I take it VAC is not freely available software? Is there any way I can build this using freely available software, or at least software that is easy to find? I don't really know how to program at all, I was just hoping I'd be able to put something together from the sample.

Also, I don't think I am finding the source. It does not appear to be in ftp.netlabs.org/pub/xworkplace

Thanks for the help so far!

smiley

#3
Quote from: Saijin_Naib on 2008.03.31, 16:32:07

Also, I don't think I am finding the source. It does not appear to be in ftp.netlabs.org/pub/xworkplace

Try here ftp://ftp.netlabs.org/pub/snapshots/

Saijin_Naib

Ah, thanks smiley. I have that package all extracted and on my desktop. Now to smack something together perhaps. I still need help getting a build enviro that can do this stuff.

herwigb

The stuff that the link pointed to is stone age old. You probably need the latest source available via cvs.

Eventually you might want to check the options for creating xCenter widgets using REXX.
Kind regards,
HerwigB.

Andi

You can try do download the sources with the Nosa client, which is available on netlabs too. Or plain cvs or any other cvs client. Porbably you should read the old messages on the developer mailing list to find the cvs link and password....

VAC3.08 and even 4.0 (which includes 3.65) are no longer available. But there was a zip named VAC308 or VACPP308 somewhere in the net.

But be prepared to dig in for hours. It's not a project which can be clicked together in a sophisticated gui within minutes. In fact, xworkplace and the widgets uses rather complicated make files to build. At least I do not understand a lot of this stuff. But I hate make files in general so I don't even try to understand them fully.

I think you need the os2 toolkit too. But ostk45 is not hard to find on the net or on the eCS CDs (?).


cytan


This is really a pet peeve of mine. For amateurs like myself who just want to write a quickie it seems that we have to jump through hoops just to get a widget programmed. For example, I'd really like to have a widget which monitors the amount of shared memory (which is starting to bite me because of all the Mozilla apps and OpenOffice which seems to swallow up shared memory like crazy), but after reading this forum, I'm afraid that I'm not even going to try. If there is some brave soul who has taken the time to build a widget can write his experience up as an article here in os2world or os2voice, that'll help immensely for people like me to get motivated to write something.

cytan

Saijin_Naib

Lol, I hear ya Cytan. I cant program at all, I was just hoping that Id be able to do a widget using the same process that lead to me making HTML websites, taking something full, and poking around and changing and learning that way. But seeing as I cant even get a visual IDE (so I can have a nice GUI to work with) this is sounding much more difficult than I am capable of tackling.

herwigb

Again: When it comes to create simple widgets nothing will beat the REXX widgets...

Have a look at http://www.os2usr.org/xcenter/

Quite some of these widgets are REXX widgets (many of them created by me).

And REXX is not more difficult than HTML...
Kind regards,
HerwigB.

Criguada

I completely agree with Herwig.
With my RexxScroller widget and a few lines of rexx code you should be able to do something nice ;-)

Bye
Cris