On Fri, 2007-07-20 at 15:27 -0500, Glimmer Labs wrote:
What problem were you trying to solve by adding the 'update' flag to the document object? I'm concerned that this is working around some synchronization issue that has broader implications in the codebase. Perhaps we have a different way of solving that problem.
The reason we added the update flag was for editing large numbers of objects (1000+) without updating the document each time, making it much faster. We found this to be useful because scripting allows one to do interesting things with large numbers of objects (such as morph) and updating the document every time something is drawn on the screen can slow down the function an immense amount.
Hmm, are you committing to the document each time? In theory the redraw should only be using idle cycles. My concern here is that we'd be be providing a pseudo-locking type mechanism that would really do everything most people would expect. I think we either need to provide real locking or find another way to work around it.
I notice that you've included some source code called "tinyscheme". Is there are reason to use that over guile's bindings? I'm curious because it would be nice if we didn't have maintain code for a scheme interpreter in our codebase. Linking to one that is already maintained is a bonus.
We considered multiple implementations of Scheme, including Guile. However it made sense to us to try to parallel the other big open-source graphics program (aka "The Gimp"), and The Gimp is using TinyScheme. We will consider Guile, however.
Ah, sorry, I thought that since you included it in the patch that this was something you had written. Can we link to TinyScheme? I'm unfamiliar with it. I don't see it in the libraries linked to The GIMP on my machine.
We have implemented the inkscape-call-verb function which works extremely well, although verbs do not extend to node manipulation and creation. We also experimented with creating a rectangle in the manner you suggested.
Cool. So would you guys be willing to implement some of the verbs for node manipulation as part of your project? I think that'd be more constructive than copying that code into the scheme interface.
This works with your idea to add new functionality without the scheme interface being updated, although along with mental's criticism, this implementation still exposes a lot of the internal C++ API directly concerning creating and modifying nodes. I guess this is an idea to explore more with Bob Jamison
I don't want to speak for Mental (okay, I do, but I'm trying to decrease my liability in doing it) but I think we agree that the interface that should be between Inkscape and scripting is the W3C DOM interface. The examples that I gave you were written with this interface. While I don't think that all of the DOM needs to be implemented for a binding to be useful, I do think this should be a goal. Bob is implementing the C++ side of DOM.
Lastly, (if you've made it this far) while I think a scheme console is cool I'm not sure how useful it is to most users. (Though, AutoCAD people seem to really like it). I think it would be really cool if you'd implement a subclass of Inkscape::Extension::Implementation that would use scheme.
We definitely would like to implement that feature, but we feel at the same time, that a interactive console can be useful to most users, and "every" user will find times in which it is faster or more natural to use a console. It also provides an easier entry into scripting than does "create a file, load it, test it."
Yes, I'm sorry if I wasn't clear. I think both target different users and are useful. I just think the majority of "art oriented" (vs. "math oriented") users are more comfortable selecting the scripts on the Effects menu. I wanted to provide a way for the math-folks to create things useful for the art folks.
In general, what is the goal of your project? Is it to provide scheme functionality in Inkscape or something larger? I'm not trying to be nosy as much as we can probably be more useful in our comments if we know where you're headed.
Thanks, Ted