Older blog entries for ebassi (starting at number 4)

* geek: I've taken the test reported by teknofile: 56.80473%. I guess it helped that I'm a trekker and a sci-fi reader/fan. ;-)

* libgtodo: In a couple of hours, I've done a decent job in subclassing GtkListStore into the GTodoListStore class. Still missing some methods, but the constructor works, and the model is usable with a GtkTreeView widget (here's a screenshot of the test app). I plan to wrap everything up tomorrow, and ask QBall to design the GTodoListView widget.

* study: boring class on computer programming. I've already done this when taking the computer engineering course (I switched to a pure CS course when I fluked three times in a row the electronics and the theory of automation classes; it's not that I don't like engineering: it's engineering that does not like me).

* life: starting may 1st, my parents are going to Rome for three days. This means: free house for approx. 72 hours. Woo-hoo!

* libgtodo: Yet another week begins, and yet another week of work on libgtodo. I've completed the basics of the GTodoClient object: it can append/remove items (and categories), and each modification is dumped onto the XML tree in memory. I began working on a sub-class of GtkListStore, called GTodoListStore, which will interface a GTodoClient object with a liststore, and later I'll design a GTodoListView widget, subclassing GtkTreeView.

Thus, a simple viewer, would consist of these calls:

client = gtodo_client_new (some_uri);

store = gtodo_list_store_new (client);

g_object_unref (client); /* store holds a reference */

view = gtodo_list_view_new_with_model (store);

gtk_widget_show (view);

In parallel, this week I'll begin writing a Perl binding to libgtodo. Subclassing a widget in Perl is quite fast, so I could design a prototype and then port it to C. Discussions about a platform language always revolve around Java/C# (with brief appearances of Python, from time to time), but they always forget that gtk2-perl and gnome2-perl bindings are one of the most advanced bindings available on GNOME D&DP. With the upcoming of Perl6 and Parrot, I'd say to give Perl a chance.

This week I've been working on libgtodo, by QBall (of gnomesupport fame). I converted it to GObject and broke everything I could think of: ABI, API, XML file format... But then, if you have to break something, better break it right. The API is much more straightforward, now, and better, I think. Now, libgtodo behaves like GConf: a client, which monitors an XML file, and keeps track of the task list. I plan to wrap this library with a Perl (and, later, a Python) binding. This is part of a grand master plan of creating a series of libraries for handling common operations for a PIM, such as a contact list, a daily/montly/yearly schedule and task lists. Right now, the only PIM for GNOME is Evolution; and as much as I appreciate the efforts for making it the best groupware around, a simple, lightweight, PIM is what GNOME is lacking right now, in my opinion.

* Still working on the perl translation of the gtk tutorial (with a hand from James Curbo), and I've hit the first culprit: should I remove the ItemFactory/Combo/FileSelection stuff, deprecated by GTK 2.4, or should I simple put a "Warning: This Stuff is Deprecated" on it?

* I've installed GNOME 2.6 from Debian experimental repository (great job, guys), and I'm testing the various gtk2-perl stuff under this new release. BTW: Gnome2::GConf hit the scene with the first stable release (1.000). Apart from brown-paper-bag releases, this one should be the one that goes into the GNOME Platform Bindings official release.

* First Post (using gnome-blog applet).