Joel Dezenzio
2010-Jan-22 15:15 UTC
[wxruby-development] Need Help with understanding Threads, Timers, and Yield
Hi Everyone, I''m a new GUI developer that is having some difficulty understanding some of the nuances of GUI development with Ruby and want to hopefully get some of my questions answered. First, let me provide my setup: . I''m using Ruby 1.9.1 patch 243 installed from mingw32-ruby-1.9.1-wxruby-2.0.1-setup.exe <http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/63415/mingw32-ruby-1.9.1-wxruby-2.0.1 -setup.exe> . . I''m using DialogBlocks as my GUI designer. . I''m using wg_sugar/xrcise for compiling my xrc source files. . I''m using Windows Vista and Netbeans 6.8 IDE for my development environment. . I''ve created a full project template to make it easier to develop my GUIs going forward using all of this setup. My design template is segmented as follows: . \icons . \images . \lib . \nbproject . \psd . \tasks . \ui . Rakefile . Start My xrc source and the ruby files that handle that source are stored in my UI directory. My lib folder contains my main program ruby files and the tasks folder contains my rake tasks. The rest of the folders are pretty self-explanatory. The start file houses the following in the first file listed here: http://gist.github.com/283794 Notes: I''m first requiring any files I need and then loading my globals and a wxhelper file. The wxhelper file is fairly simple in that it''s loading all of the ruby files that are listed in my UI directory for handling the GUi frames. In addition, any pre-init type of events that need to take place (building directories, reading configuration files, etc. are done with WxHelper. Then I''m loading my main.rb file which houses all of the meat of my code, including the listener events. As you can see on lines 16-18 of the start file, I''m starting a timer to pass threads. I believe this is the proper place to put this code, but I may be mistaken. I''ll ask questions about this in a moment. Lastly, my main.rb file handles something similar in the second file listed here: http://gist.github.com/283794 When I''m ready to work on my GUI development, I simply design in DialogBlocks, save my xrc, run a rake task that automatically builds my ruby files from xrc using xrcise, and then type ruby start to execute my GUI. I prefer this type of setup because it feels right. However, it may not be the most efficient way to design and therefore, if there is a better way to implement a design template, please let me know. So, now that I have all of my pre-requisite mish-mosh out of the way (my apologies for the length), you at least understand how I''m operating and can possibly answer my questions a little more easily now. Here are my questions: Question 1: Did I place the timer event in the right spot? I placed it in the init section of my start script. Second-guessing myself, the only other place I felt I could place it would be within the initialize section of my main.rb script but this didn''t feel right. Because my program is starting with the init, I felt it should go here. If I''m mistaken, please correct me and explain why it shouldn''t go here. Question 2: My program is going to be using several open socket connections simultaneously and CPU processing will occur as well. Therefore, I''m trying to simplify my template by incorporating threads to handle CPU/IO blocking. I believe I understand the processes, but my biggest issue may be WHEN and HOW to implement threads in my programs. Coming from other languages where simple gui designs didn''t incorporate threading, I can understand and appreciate the concept behind threading. I had first thought about implementing fibers but I don''t believe this is the best thing for me to do since I''m going to be handling cpu blocking. In addition, some java users mention that even if you use a fiber, you have to have a thread to manage it. So, threading is the way I want to go. I''m a newbie and novice programmer in terms of threading and even looking over the examples, I just can''t wrap my head around it at the moment. Any help would be appreciated with reference to my code listed above and when to use threads and also how to use them. Question 3: I really do love DialogBlocks because it does simplify GUI design. I read and parsed my own set of notes which I''ll outline below and post the follow-up question: In DBLK, all top-level Frames, Dialogs and Panels become Ruby classes. The name you type in the class field within DBLK becomes the class name in your Ruby program. Likewise, for the controls "within" a container, the DBLK class name becomes the name of a Ruby module in your program that will be used to extend the control. How am I supposed to properly include the classes and modules within my program template structure? Should I be placing multiple modules and classes in the same main.rb file or should I place them in separate files and (require?/load?) them from my main.rb file? For instance, the first class that I had which is listed in main.rb is GuiMain which is referenced from the main gui frame that acts as the parent container for my application. I haven''t added any other elements yet that will become modules or classes, so I''m just uncertain where these code bits will be placed, or how to properly include them in my GUI. Any help concerning this would be appreciated. Question 4: This is more of a dialogblocks question but I''m certain someone who may use dialogblocks can answer it for me. The question I have relates to sizers and my application as a whole. I understand the concept of sizers but what I don''t understand is how to properly size my Gui App depending on resolution sizes of other users'' desktops. For instance, right now I have a simple 700 x 550 starting gui app. I know that if I place a vertical sizer into my app and a main panel into that sizer, that whenever someone resizes the app, it will stretch out the main panel as well. However, this appears frustrating to me mainly because I''m heavily into CSS designing and I''m always trying to optimize for different browser sizes. What is a good starting application size (and the absolute maximum size you should place as a minimum starting point, before resizing?) Or, is there a way to test for desktop resolution across all OS platforms, and determine an initial gui app starting size based on that resolution type? These four question outlines are my biggest concerns at the moment. I''m a very fast learner, have a lot of free time to read/learn and browse api, etc. I soak up information like a sponge which is a good thing. So, please feel free to inundate me with as much information possible about these questions and/or other novice items that I may not know about. I like the feel of WxRuby and I''m really excited to get down into porting some of my older GUI app code over to WxRuby. Many thanks in advance. Sincerely, Joel Dezenzio -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://rubyforge.org/pipermail/wxruby-development/attachments/20100122/4664f198/attachment-0001.html>