Application Configuration GUI.

[Joel Sherrill]

One solution is to use the menuconfig system from the Linux
kernel. They support multiple user interfaces and it would only be a
matter of providing our configuration options to it in the right format.

We would have to package the source for our end users.

The big questions to me is portability. At one point in the past, this
was an independent project but I am no longer sure it is.

I used this configuration system for a complex end user library I
consulted on. If this is a feasible alternative, we save a LOT of
work.

Similar crosstool-ng may have some helpful and simple infrastructure
to do this.

Keeping this simple and not being totally RTEMS project responsibility
to maintain long term has value.

--joel

On 04/05/2013 09:01 PM, Rempel, Cynthia wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Okay, so we can probably strike out Eclipse (I don't use it that much either...).
>
> If Python is used, I'm rather partial to a wxWidgets or straight tk solution, just because of so many issues with a specific host OS dependent graphical library.
>
> The work-around to handling a wxPython dependency is include wx in the application.  One such discussion can be found: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6917456/how-can-i-package-my-python-application-with-external-python-libraries .
>
> Although design tools are distasteful for some developers, using design a tool such as http://bytes.com/topic/python/answers/785177-wxformbuilder for developing a rapid prototype would free the developer to concentrate more on the functionality, and less on tailoring the graphics.
>
> So the overall idea (for a wx application) would be:
>
> 1. a quick user mock-up done with a design tool,
> - either -
> 2a. a simple parser, and a script to quickly auto-generate the code from what the parser extracts into a format usable by the design tool
> - or -
> 2b. a substitution script to put the code from either confdefs.h or rtems/doc/user/conf.t into a format usable by the design tool
>
> 3. a call to the design tool
> 4. a call to the packaging tool
>
> The overall idea for a tk application would be steps 1-3.
>
> IMO, learning a design tool may sound like an unnecessary step, but it will save time both in the short-run and long-run.  I also suspect that having the application automatically install wx would handle the wx dependency.
> ________________________________________
> From: Chris Johns [chrisj at rtems.org]
> Sent: Friday, April 05, 2013 5:06 PM
> To: Rempel, Cynthia
> Cc: Joel Sherrill; Shubham Somani; rtems-devel at rtems.org
> Subject: Re: Application Configuration GUI.
>
> Rempel, Cynthia wrote:
>> I know Eclipse seems to work on Ubuntu, if we went that route,....
>>
> I do not use Eclipse and do not see myself using it in the future. An
> Eclipse only path does not have my support. I see it as the equivalent
> of me implementing this in Emacs lisp code.
>
> Eclipse supporting RTEMS and maintained by RTEMS users is fantastic and
> I welcome it how-ever we are talking about a few things here. The first
> is a common configuration file and then code to manage it.
>
> Chris
>
>


-- 
Joel Sherrill, Ph.D.             Director of Research& Development
joel.sherrill at OARcorp.com        On-Line Applications Research
Ask me about RTEMS: a free RTOS  Huntsville AL 35806
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