From owner-freebsd-hackers  Mon Dec  1 19:04:26 1997
Return-Path: <owner-freebsd-hackers>
Received: (from root@localhost)
          by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id TAA18434
          for hackers-outgoing; Mon, 1 Dec 1997 19:04:26 -0800 (PST)
          (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers)
Received: from rhiannon.clari.net.au (rhiannon.clari.net.au [203.27.85.9])
          by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id TAA18414
          for <freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG>; Mon, 1 Dec 1997 19:04:17 -0800 (PST)
          (envelope-from peter@rhiannon.clari.net.au)
Received: (from root@localhost)
	by rhiannon.clari.net.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id OAA17066;
	Tue, 2 Dec 1997 14:04:04 +1100 (EST)
Date: Tue, 2 Dec 1997 14:04:04 +1100 (EST)
From: Peter Hawkins <peter@rhiannon.clari.net.au>
Message-Id: <199712020304.OAA17066@rhiannon.clari.net.au>
To: jkh@time.cdrom.com, peter@rhiannon.clari.net.au
Subject: Re: GUI wizard interface
Cc: danny@hilink.com.au, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, j@uriah.heep.sax.de
Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
X-Loop: FreeBSD.org
Precedence: bulk

>Hmmm.  This sounds very promising, though without a bit more detail
>it's hard for me comment any more significantly on it.  Strangely
>enough, I've also been working on a "wizard" tool these last couple of
>days since I managed to hand Mike Smith my package & installer hat a
>few weeks back and am now free to think about different problems in
>that same general region of the system.  Perhaps we can work together
>on some aspect of this?

Sure! How about you send me the code to your back end (the ppp thing
which calls it) so I can get a feel for your contexts concept?
In my case, the interface you'd write would be a finite state
machine but it sounds sort of similar. The alpha will be out (I hope)
within a week. I had envisaged that 1.1 would have an improved interface
which I'd write using lex and define a syntax to be an alternative
to direct calls. Perhaps I could encompass your contexts that way?

The finite state machine doesn't push or pop states as it is; here
is a crude example...




exithandle()
{
  cvend();
}


display( char *result)
{
cvprintf("user added",result,"ok",mainmenu,"back",mainmenu,"cancel",exithandle);
}

adduser( char *result)
{
  cvdialoglist( "Add an account", "type in up to 4 values",

	             "enter username",
	             "enter account name",
	             "enter uid",
	             "home directory",

	             "back", mainmenu,	"next", display );
}

mainmenu()
{
  cvbuttonlist( "Account manager", "press your button",

		     "add new account",		adduser,
		     "delete account",		deluser,

   	             "cancel", exithandle );
}

main()
{
  cvinit( stuff );
  mainmenu();
}


items are buttons or dialogs. buttons are followed by a handler routine
name and the names "ok" "next" "back" and "cancel" are special - always
buttons and are placed in the navigation bar at the bottom of the screen.

cvprintf() is used to display messages and results.

I am planning to add cvmatrix() which will combine all the above into a
single call defining a state matrix.

Peter

Peter