The OS2Diary

Almost there

2010-06-09T11:38:00.000-07:00

The system is running and all the tools needed to continue my work are in place. The only show stopper is a BUG on the system that prevents the JVM to work properly.

My machine seems to have exactly the wrong combo of hardware and software to make the Java environment unstable.

I believe the problems lays on the kernel+CPU+Java version I'm using. I keep getting SYS1808 and all sorts of silly exceptions on the Java runtime. 2 out 10 times the tools work. Clearly I need to solve this problem before I can continue with any serious work.

Bye

Recovering the system

2010-05-06T11:29:00.000-07:00

I've been slowly bringing back my home system and las night I was able to install a new eCS over a previous one. Cool feature because I had a lot of configurations that I didn't want to reimplement.
Looks good but I still can make the wifi card work. Without it the system it's pretty much useless. All the updates I made on the SWT were done using a VM and I need to connect to the SVN to get those.

Besides the code on that machine contains more things like the support for progress bars (didn't work but it's there)

I'm still trying to find some time to work but it has been imposible.

Update

2010-04-22T07:20:00.001-07:00

I haven't had time to work on the code for two months now. I added a lot of code to implement the Tree control. After I finished the implementation it didn't work. The code crashes and I don't have much clue on what it's wrong. Bare in mind that I'm pretty ignorant on the Container control, a complex beast.

Finally soon I'll be able to recover my old computer where I could do some more coding, but for now I don't have time.

Regards.

Next moves

2009-11-27T03:45:00.000-08:00

I'm kind of tired and bored fixing things for the Text class. Many display problems remain. The most annoying one is a "bug" with the MLM_QUERYLINECOUNT message. For some reason it returns difenrent values sometimes.

Now I want to move on. First register the unsolve bugs and then begin the work on the tree and table classes. Probably that will take me a couple of months at least. After that ProgressBar and Sash classes should be implemented.

Work on the port of the Program class should finish the loader for Eclipse and then a full compilation should be the last item in the list.

Well, that's the plan. Let see how close I follow.

Bye

Slowing down

2009-11-20T04:10:00.000-08:00

There has been some slowing down on the updates, mainly because I have a heavier load of work and there has been more problems than anticipated with the Text class. I have added two tabs from the control example. One deals with the different kind of dialogs available from SWT and the other with the Text and StyledText classes.
StyledText class does not compile because of the dependencies with some classes that need to be ported so I left it out of the example.

As of now I continue to improve the text class getting ready of small glitches.

Bye

Habemus icons

2009-11-03T05:42:00.000-08:00

After some extra,,,, extra,,, extra effort I "solved" the issue of the missing images in the Label class. Still needs testing, but so far it looks fine.

The problem is a bug in the WinCreatePointerIndirect that ignores the mini icons. The solution was to draw the image using the GPI Api in the WM_PAINT of the Label class. I used the code from the Botton class that implemented the same solution.

I decided to allow the WinCreatePointerIndirect to work for regular size icons. There is a pallete problem there and the will be problems when the image is 32x32 and the resolution calls for the use of 40x40 icons. In that case PM will scale the icon and it will look ugly.

I'll clean up the code and will upload the changes this week.

Fixing more things

2009-10-26T05:51:00.000-07:00

As I go over the code I keep discovering new improvements and unimplemented features to work on.
Last week I corrected the default sizing of the Scale and Slider classes. Now the ControlExample shows them in a correct default size.
The one fix that was really important was the redrawing of the group class. This caused a mess everytime a control was redraw.

The problem happened because the original Win32 implementation uses some flags that indicate when the background should be restore. This feature does not exist in OS/2 so the solution was to implement the WM_PAINT in the group control and there take care of the background refresh. So far it works and now the groups refresh themselfs just fine in the ControlExample testcase.

Over the weekend I added support for the Innotek Font Engine. I tried to see if things worked. Unfortunally there was a lot of tweaking on the SWT port font code to circunvent PM bugs.
Clearly I need to go over the font code since using the FT2LIB screws the true type drawing. The change shows potential but needs some work. I left the engine turned off for now.

This week I'll try to fix the static control. It's now showing images. If I get brave I'll also try to subclass the WC_STATIC and create the conditions and tools to easily extent controls through this OS/2 feature.

Improvements

2009-10-13T13:06:00.000-07:00

Last week I worked on solving many issues that are pending of solution. Looking at the ControlExample I solved issues with the List class. Many of the display problems were taken care of. Now the code seems to show the List exactly as the Window version does, except for the vertical scrollbar that in OS/2 is always visible.

I also solved some other minor issues like the color of the tabs in tabfolder and I began the imlementation of clipboard support in the Text class.

Also today I fixed the font dialog exception and now the font can be selected for any of the controls.

Clipping away

2009-10-01T05:47:00.000-07:00

It took me a long time to discover why the composite classes didn't repaint their backgrounds after being clipped. At the end thes solution was so simple that's not even funny.

Well with that problem left behind, I have a whole lot of more things to do. First I will go over the implementation of menus. So far everything seems to work OK. I added the mnemonics and they work just fine.

I dicovered a new bug on the creation of the acceletators table. I going through the C JNI implementation.There seems to be a problem. I'm also looking into adding the icons to the menus and the implmentation of the progress bar using the slider control.

The easy part is to finish the mouse events (at least of the second button).

Well, let's go back to work now.

More bugs

2009-08-04T06:34:00.000-07:00

As I advance on the task of making the control example work, I keep coming accross new bugs. Now I discover that some controls inside the notebook page, do not update their state correctly, but I'll leave that problem for later.
Right now I'm learning how to capture the mouse events inside the notebook pages. I also fixed a crash produced by right mouse button being clicked inside the notebook window.

My work will slow down a little the next weeks for personal reasons.

Notebooks and more notebooks

2009-07-31T07:40:00.000-07:00

I took a short vacation and I didn't work on the code at all. At that time I had the problem of double click on tabs would cause a redraw of the window. That problem was solved by not using the autosize flag on the creation of the tab.

Then came the problem of the size and position of the application window inside the tab. I did a lot of testing and finally I understood how to calculate the Y coordinate.

After that the problem was that the initial drawing of the top page didn't happen and that was solved by implementing the drawing on the WM_SIZE message. This also solved the resizing problem I was seeing in the Control examples from Eclipse.

Now on to implement the mouse operations. The Control example doesn't work at all because the notebook is not processing mouse events.

Also on the list should be the drawing of the text happens using os/2 coordinates and it should be using the SWT coordinates

That's all for now....

Notebook fixing

2009-07-14T07:12:00.000-07:00

After the suggestion of Martin I began to work on making an example work. I modified the SWT control example to leave out all the unimplemented classes and it did work,,,, well sort of.

I discover that my imlementation of the tabfolder class was incomplete to say the least. Actually the onky thing that did was to paint a very basic Tab. I set up to solve the problem and I did some good progress.

First I fixed the adding of new tabs issue, then I was able to color the tabs to make them look more like the rest of the platforms. I changed the testcase to include more functionality and the I found problems with the display of the controls inside the tab page.

After some tests I discover that I wasn't connecting the tab id with the window id. I realized that I'm so ignorant on some of the most basics things of PM programming. Well I guess that's the point of all this... to learn.
Probably today or tomorrow I'll finish the display issues and then I'll go into more little details.

Probably the implementations of scroll bars and menu's aren't that complete either so I'll go back and fix them as I go along.

Some work done

2009-07-06T09:25:00.000-07:00

This weekend I had some work done on the code. First I added more needed stuff to create a progress bar example, this includes all the constants from the progress.h to OS.java, 4 APIs definition (only 2 are going to be tested), the JNI implementation of the main API in the swt.c

I was able to compile the C code and the Java code without many problems now I need to implement the second API to set the attributes of the bar. After that I only need to create a testcase and play with the progressbar class.

I also realized that there is a lot of work to do on the Program.java. First I need to understand it's use.

Finally, I tried to run the control example directly from the distribution and I came across a NoDef class exception as it was expected and I learned that there are a bunch of emulated controls, now I just need to compile them and work from there... in other words aa lot of work still.

New ideas

2009-07-03T11:36:00.000-07:00

Since I finished the Scale class I have been looking for my next move. I decided to use the eco software runtime and libraries to add support to the missing controls. The downside is that you would actually need the runtime installed before you can use the SWT port.
The other line of work has been to include in the trunk additional classes we need compile in order to make Eclipse port work. I added the boot.jar and the startup.jar to the tree. They both compile now using ant.cmd boot.jar or ant.cmd startup.jar. A lot of investigation needs to be done before moving forward in these tasks.
Finally the last line of work has been the creation of a working test that I can upload to the net and somehow demonstrate where I am with the SWT port. I'm going to use the control example from the eclipse distribution. Hopefully I'll have ready next week

Scale class

2009-06-17T11:01:00.001-07:00

I found some time to work on the proyect again and I decided to add the Scale class. The main new challenge was to include control data.
In order to do it I wrote a new WinCreateWindow implementation that took the SLDCDATA structure as parameter. I overwrote the constructor of the class using this call instead of using the Control call.
The rest was fairly easy. The only issue was that the result of painting the scale on diffrent systems gives different looks. I have to find out how to make it consistent.

New job,,, less time

2008-07-18T08:05:00.000-07:00

As July 7th, I began working as a development manager at an airline company (guess I'll be flying a lot more). As a result I'm focus on getting on track with the business and the new responsabilities. I'll be doing more of the same only on a different company with a bigger salary a key for the bathroom and a parking space.

Most of the development is done in J2EE, using the usual stuff. I'll be doing a lot less programming of course (that's why I keep this project alive, so my brain can be challenge and my neurons don't die of boredom).

Also, my computer at home has started to act up on me and sometimes I can't bring up the development environment or my wifi conection.

Also, I made myself the promise of finishing building my 1:6 scale radio controlled TA-152C airplane, before years end, and so that's keeping me from doing any work on the port on this past two weeks.

Fixing things

2008-07-03T05:08:00.000-07:00

The project is moving along. I began working on the branch Lee left. I fllowed his steps and I ended at the same spot. That is a linking problem. After thinking about it (not too much really), I decided to create a test branch only changing the C compiler. The result is that the project compiles and runs testcase swt001. The rest of the testcases freeze the system when the window comes up. Sounds like it enters a blocking loop. Actually the system doesn't stop, and sometimes I can recover and kill the process.

In another front, I prepared an Eclipse distribution with all that is needed to boot the port. So far the splash window comes on but the process stops with an error of a missing class.

I also encountered some errors that I need to fix in the main trunk. First, for some reason, the color dialog stoped working and second the list box widget has serious refresh problems, it doesn't repaint right.

And finally, I went over the stuff that needs to be done to be included in the Eclipse organization and I would need so much time that for now it is not worth it.

So you see, lots of things and so far nobody to help... pity

Photo feast

2008-07-02T04:52:00.000-07:00

Here are some images of the different testcases created to test different parts of the port of SWT. You can imagine the things or programs that can be created using what is available.

Finishing with menus

2008-06-27T07:50:00.000-07:00

After much work and learning I finally finished a basic implementation of menus. All the basic functions work, and now popups send events and they are display on the correct position too. Left is to implement the icons + text, and finish the accelerator keys.

Now I'll move onto trying to boot Eclipse. Still we are short of some widgets, like tree, progressbar, sash, just to name the most important ones.

Popups working,, sort of

2008-06-18T15:32:00.000-07:00

Finally I found the reason why the popups where gone right away. The problem, as usual, was a very dumb combination of flags on the WinPopupMenu call. As a result, the item was selected as soon as the popup came up, therefore I couldn't see it. I became suspicious of this when I kept seeing the WM_MENUSELECT and the WM_MENUEND messages, that meant someone was selecting an item.

Now, as usual too, I have new problems. The first is that the command message id not being fired when I select the item on the popup. The second problem is that I'm not closing (disposing) something right, I can tell because I see the WM_MENUEND message only once even though I bring the popup many times and because when I do this many times, after I close the program it takes some seconds to finish the processing.

Once I solve those problems I'll move into completing the API with calls to calculate the cursor position and so forth.

Still, I'm happy this sucker didn't win and I finally can bring up the popups.

Also, I was able to process the events from the menu bar, so now SWT is firing events when I select items on menu bars.

SVN sync

2008-06-11T08:15:00.000-07:00

After much discussion at the news group, I found out that I had no idea how to work with popups. The problem persist when trying to display the popup, this comes up and then it goes away inmediatly.

I have no idea how to solve the problem. For some reason the control receives a WM_MENUEND.

The other problem is that the menu commands are not being sent. I haven't paid much attention to this problem, since it seems that it will be easier to solve.
I feel I need to join one of the SWT developers group since I have lots of questions on what is the expected behavior on SWT controls.

On better news, I was able to connect to netlabs directly from my OS/2 at home using SmartSVN. This opens the door to keep the sources in sync with the repository, making my life easier. I tried before but I couldn't connect. I have no idea how the problem was solved.

Still feeling pretty lonely here. I was wondering if I could upload to netlabs the developing image I made. Probably I could but the licences the image contains are not free, but then again, who cares about VAC++ 4.0, a product that was abandoned a LONG time ago... oh well

More menus

2008-05-30T10:54:00.000-07:00

I started working on the accelerator tables. To my surprise, accelerators meant a lot of new code. Beginning with APIs to be implemented:

WinCreateAccelTable
WinDestroyAccelTable
WinSetAccelTable
WinTranslateAccel

Structs to be created:

ACCEL
ACCELTABLE

And then customize the existing code to work as OS/2 does.

I felt short of finishing the implementation. I still need to verify that the commands are being sent. This is because I don't even know if the normal menus are sending commands.

Then I decided to go and finish the popup menus. I discovered how ignorant I was about the subject and that the initial implementation I had made was useless. First my notion of creating and displaying the popup was totally wrong. I placed the creation of the window and the displaying under the same method.

I then learned that the displaying was done when the WM_CONTEXTMENU message was capture (this is basic for some PM knowledge, but I'm new). I implemented the method on the Control class and I was able to see the message being capture there, and then I used WinPopupMenu API to display the popup. So far no luck, I'm being helped bye some people and I hope today I will finally see the menu.

A new approach

2008-05-22T14:39:00.000-07:00

I changed jobs and of course changes bring new challenges. I lost the only way I had of commiting the work, hence there have been no new updates to the SVN server.

I decided to work on the acceleration tables for the Menu object and I found out that there is a lot of work to do to enable them. First I have to implement a new API call "WinCreateAccelTable" and with it a new object "ACCELTABLE". I'll probably encounter new problems with memory handling using JNI. After all is implemented I'll need to create a testcase to test all that.

So for the time being I'll be busy.

Also I have created a new environment to develop. In a Virtual PC I installed a ECS RC4 and all the tools necessary to develop. The idea is to pass that on to other developers that don't have access to the right tools. My work is going to be complete tomorrow, then I'll have to find the way to share such a large file

A working menu and something else

2008-04-24T18:25:00.000-07:00

Here are some images of the results of the macro change:

Here are some images of the results of the macro change:

Old errors coming back

2008-04-24T14:27:00.000-07:00

Developing the testcase I came across an error like the one I had with the insert code for notebooks and tabs. Only this time I decided I wasn't going to give up. I went over the code many times to verify that this new error wasn't mine.

The call was MM_QUERYITEM, where you have to pass the ID of the item to be queried, whether or not you want to include the submenus on the search and a pointer to a MENUITEM structure.

I created a menuitem and gave it a 100d as it's ID value. I knew it worked because the call SETITEMTEXT, using that ID was working (I was seeing the text). Still the call to query the item would not return. Then I decided to debug the parameters on the C call. I just printed the values of the parameters. Everything looked fine, the first parameter was in fact a handle and the same one being created and used on the Java code. The message was the right one (0x182) and the third parameter looked just fine with the value of 640001 for MPFROM2SHORT(100, TRUE). Still the call didn't work.

After more debug messages I decided to make a parallel call this time using my own variables. At first I used only the MENUITEM parameter different from the rest. I passed a null pointer. Still no luck.

Finally I decided to ignore the third parameter and used MPFROM2SHORT(100, TRUE) directly on the call. Surprised,,, it worked. To find out why I then printed the result value of that macro and "bingo",, I got 10064!!! the right result only reversed from what I was getting from Java.

Scary to think that the macro being used extensively on the port is broken.

The good is that probably that is going to fix the problem I had with the insertion of tabs.

The bad is that probably I'm going to see some new stuff broken.

Tonight we will see

Some success

2008-04-10T06:10:00.000-07:00

Finally a break. After sitting in front of the code for a while and looking at some examples I found on the web, I found the problem with my menu code. I was using the desktop as the parent of the the menu instead of using the window frame (I'm talking about a menu bar). When I changed it I got my empty menu bar.

Now I'm working on the code to add menus to other menus. So far I'm working to understand the Windows code. I believe today I'm going to have a nice looking menu with text on it and if I do I'll post it tomorrow.

I'm back

2008-04-09T15:59:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted here for a while and there are lots of reasons, but it can be summarized as life. Anyway, I kept on adding methods to the Menu and MenuItem classes and now I'm testing things against a testcase. The problem is that I see no menu so far. I'll keep on working until I see some result.

Slow work

2008-01-03T05:14:00.000-08:00

I'm sorry to report that I haven't been working too much on the port. Christmas, New Year and all the activities of the closing year have kept me really busy with life. Now I'm less than a month away from my wedding and there are still so many things to finish so there is no way I'll have much time to sit on the computer and program code. Still I have some code that needs to be commited to the CVS, and I'll see if I can find time to do that.

Just hoping that people can solve the problams they have with the trunk.

back on track again

2007-12-18T15:57:00.000-08:00

After a pause I'm back at the code again. So far I have only manage to get a handle to the menu, I had to implement the WinPopupMenu API, and I'm thinking that maybe I should go ahead and do the same with WinCreateMenu. Right now I'm using WinCreateWindow with WC_MENU as the window class.

Next, implement the rest of the methods.

Pretty lost

2007-12-10T16:48:00.000-08:00

After going all the steps I described before I began to come across some problems caused by my ignorance.
The first thing I noticed was that Menu class derives from Widget class, that means you skipped the whole Control class tree. Looking at the Win32 code I see the use of OS.CreateMenu() to create a menu with a bar and OS.CreatePopupMenu () to create a popup menu.
You could argue that we could use WinCreateMenu or WinCreateWindow with WC_MENU class to create a menu with a bar and WinPopUpMenu to create a popup. Looking at the docs clearly it takes a lot more than just calling those APIs to come up with a menu in OS/2. First question: is this so?.
The menu API is rich and I'm pretty confident that once I have a handle of a living menu we could quickly replicate the behavior we need.
Any ideas?. In any case I'm going to start calling these APIs and finding out what they do, but in case anyone has experience a helping hand would be reslly good.

Trying to set the Env.

2007-12-04T03:48:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to set 7up the environment needed to compile the project using the branch for Watcom.

I installed OW and downloaded ANT. I already have Java141. I modified the env.cmd to point to my directories... now what. I realize there where no ant.cmd under the branch.... mmm wonder if I'm missing a big chunck of something.

I also finished adding the C stuctures and created the swt009_08 testcase that will be the base to test the Menu class.

Here goes a picture of the Group testscase

On to Menu class

2007-11-28T10:40:00.000-08:00

I decided to begin the work on the Menu class. After going over the code I considered it not to be as hard as I thought to be.

I created the MENUITEM and OWNERITEM classes and added the constants needed by the API. Next I will go into the C code to add the stuctures for the new classes and then I'll prepare a testcase. Finally I'll begin the work on the class, method by method, like always.

After the menu class,,, I don't know, maybe someone will join me.. it feels pretty lonely here.

Little time

2007-11-20T06:59:00.000-08:00

I'm picking up on the work on my RC model airplane. I have been working on it for years and from time to time I get the itch and I work on it. Besides that, I don't really do any computer work on weekends.

That said, I would say that there has been little progress on the launcher. It now shows the splash window and that's cool but as expected it fails. To test it I dowloaded the Eclipse 2.0.1 runtime for windows. After looking at the directories, I created the necessary ones following the naming convention and copying the necesary DLLs and JAR files from the port. I realized that the ant that I use doesn't create the swt.jar and in my opinion it should everytime we build the classes.

Since I'm stuck on the launcher and to be honest, I got bored, I decided that I'm going back to the Java code. Since I have no idea where to start with the Menu class, I'll just do some preparatory work, adding the constants, creating a testcase and adding the classes stubs to the project. I'll have more fun that way. At least I'm going to be feeling like I'm adding something new to the code.

I donwloaded a progress bar control that I found in a russian site, with examples. It looks cool and complete. Maybe that code can be added to the port since we don't have any progress bar code so far.

Launcher success

2007-11-13T10:53:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I fixed the sources of the launcher2 program. First I dicovered that the library was a utility library done by the developer to simplify the development. Since adding that library was more trouble for me, I decided to replace the library with the code.

You get more lines but what the hell. After a successfukll compilation I included the ico file into the executable.

Finally I decided to go ahead and try the program. I searched the hard drive for a startup.jar file. The one that came up was one included with the sources I recieved. I moved the file into the exe directory and tested. The result... a java screen (awt I think) displaying the parameters passed onto the program and a nice message saying that everything was going OK.

I copied the original startup.jar file from the Eclipse distribution into the same directory, overwriting the one I used first to see if the results were the same.
Well the results were not the same. This time I got a message saying that the instalation directory wasn't found. A .workspace directory was created and a log file was written saying that the Eclipse structure wasn't found.

I'll experiment creating a Eclipse structure and trying then to see what happens.

The only problem that really bugs me it's the fact that I can't debug the C code under VAC++ 4.0. I'll be asking around about this.

Launcher

2007-11-08T06:09:00.000-08:00

I recieved the sources back from Lee Riemenschneider and I began looking at the way to integrate them on the project. This is going to be an on going task, since I keep changing my mind. I created the directory structure needed and I created a VAC 4.0 project just to test the compilation.
After a couple of changes to the code it finally compiled. Trying the exe gives me controlled errors indicating the lack of startup.jar on the same directory. So those were really good news since it meant that I was on the right track. Today I realized that I was using the sources of the launcher for the Eclipse 1 project. I changed it but I came across a problem with an included library. The program calls a MMLoadBitmap function and I haven't found where it is yet.

My idea is to get the source compile, then add the icon resource then make the program load the splash window, after that I'll try getting everything in place to do a test with a startup.jar

Going forward

2007-11-07T05:07:00.000-08:00

I decided to go over the code and finish uncomplete code. I have worked on the Display and Control classes, implementing code that was left commented by the former developer. I also added comments to some other methods pointing out the API calls that should be implement on those particular cases.

I also got the sources of the launcher and I created the basic stucture of dirs to begin the porting work. I have no idea how hard it will be but the sources are supposed to compile under VAC++ 3.08 so I hope it won't be too complex.

Group done,,... next ...????

2007-11-05T16:41:00.000-08:00

Ok, I finished implementing the Group class. I completed the getClientArea method. That solved the problem of displaying a group without any text on it.

I also discovered that the problem with the setText method wasn't there . The problem seems to be associated with the PSZ class. When I create a PSZ using an empty string,, it crashes and burns (on any setText method). I tried a couple of short solutions but they didn't work. I guess I'll try a stronger medicine.

Now about the future. I have no idea where to go now. I know I don't have the skills to solve the problems with the tabfolder class and to implement the Menu class. I'm thinking on working on the launcher app. As soon as I get the sources back I'll include them in the repository.In the mean time I could just look around the code and finish unimplemented functions (there are all over the place)

Group almost done

2007-10-31T05:34:00.000-07:00

I finished the basic stuff on this class and now I have a testcase working swt009_07. I found some problems setting empty strings (group0.setText("")) but I'll solve that soon. I only need to implement the getClientArea method.

I'll commit the changes soon. The problem is that I don't have an open Internet connection.

Group class

2007-10-30T04:27:00.000-07:00

I just finish the basic implementation of the Group class. Using the WC_STATIC + SS_GROUPBOX style. So far the basic stuff works and I hope I can commit the changes today or tomorrow.

I found a problem common to all Composite classes. The background of the controls are not repainted after gaining focus. You can see this on the List, Group and TabFolder classes. There is a new ticket I need to add.

Lot of work and I'm stuck with TabFolder

2007-10-26T09:02:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm stuck. After believing for a second that the C program was almost complete I realized that there was a lot of things that I was leaving out.
I came to understand (not completly) the way the messages are handle, and with it I came across a lot of code that I need to write in order to complete the C program. Specially the WM_PAINT message in the Composite class.

Each child of Control has it's own msg proc method and it implements the necessary messages through methods MRESULT WM_*whatever*(msg, mp1,mp2).

Since, until I get a better understanding of all these things I won't be able to solve the problem I have with the Notebook control (TabFolder class,,, see testcase swt009_06). I decided to go ahead and finish easier classes, like Group.

I could really get some help at this stage. I don't have enough time to investigate and to program. I can do just one thing.

C

2007-10-23T08:11:00.000-07:00

I have been working on creating a C program that follows the API calls that are made in the SWT code. So far so good.
Today I was able to complete the swt002 testscase using C. Of course that there are missing calls but the idea is to concentrate on the basic stuff. I'm still having problems with the refresh of the created window. It doesn't repaint.

I'll post the code on a newsgroup so I can get some help on this.

My idea is to work on to the swt009_06 testcase to find out why I can't add notetab pages. Also this effort will serve as a testing and debugging tool in the future.

Some progress

2007-10-10T11:40:00.000-07:00

I commited the sources and began to work on the TabFolder class again. I finished bringing the code to the same state of before the lost of my HD.

Still I have the same problem when I try to add a notebook page and when the window losses focus and it is brought back to the front (the clipping doesn't work). One problem is solved though. The testcase doesn't crash when I click on the window, like it used to.

After I tried everything, I decided to go back to basics and start from scratch. I went over the documentation to try to really understand what was done and how PM is being used. I created a C program which will follow the flow of the API calls in the hope that I'll be able to reproduce the behaviour of the SWT classes. I believe this will be a good tool to understand what is going on under the hood.

SVN stories

2007-09-25T07:33:00.000-07:00

I was finally able to get an account in the SVN system of Netlabs and now I'll be able to commit my work to it.
Now I have new problems. I decided to download SmartSVN a Java SVN client that seemed complete and was reported to work with OS/2.
As soon as I installed I noticed that the program wouldn't read the partition were the project is at. Later I downloaded the port of svn to OS/2 and when I was ready to begin testing, my Internet connection went dead and now I have the account but no way to commit.

What can I say...?? patience, only patience.

Eureka!

2007-09-13T06:33:00.000-07:00

Finally I was able to compile the whole thing and now I can start working on the project again. I just lost the work on the TabFolder class.

Tales from Java

2007-09-07T06:49:00.000-07:00

I decided to go on and create the environment for the port of SWT. I installed Java13 and Java131. Unfortunally for a strange reason the toolkit refuses to install on both distributions.

I thought I just needed the header files to make the compilation work but when I tried the ant command the system kept telling me that javac was missing. After going over the response file of the installer for the Java I realized that the toolkit included the header files AND the javac (of course... very dumb of me).

Since my attempts to make the CSD file work were futile, I decided to copy file by file from the instalation directory to their destination place. Let me say that "that sucks". I'm not finished yet but the road is clear I just have to go and do it.

I should be able to compile the project again very soon

eCS success

2007-08-31T07:52:00.000-07:00

After a couple of tries, finally I was able to install eCS RC1 with support of my wifi card. The problem was trying to install the GenMac Drivers after the instalation. That process doesn't work very well at all.

Well this opens lots of doors to work integrated on the Internet. I did connect to the web with the XLAN program. I'm really glad. It looks like finally I'll be able to work with OS/2 for some years to come on newer hardware.

PS. The system is FAST!!!!! really FAST!!!!

My disk is gone!!!

2007-08-27T17:53:00.000-07:00

Well, as I feared it for a long time my hard disk came to an end on Friday the 24th. With it my OS/2 system, my most delicate configurations my most precious collection of software and six years of great fun.
My SWT port project was there and now is also gone, but I was lucky I made a backup in June, so probably I just lost the slider and the tabfolder classes.

Oh well now I have to start building a new OS/2 system on my newer computer, using eCS since my old WSeB won't install on the new hardware. Let the fun begin... again

First post

2007-08-21T07:24:00.000-07:00

This is my first post on this blog and to me it is a new tool to communicate but I believe it could help to get in contact with people with interest on further supporting and improving OS/2.

Any one is welcome to post keeping in mind that I will not allow any religous war on the OS subject. Only productive and polite posts will be kept.

Last thing, english should be use but spanish posts will be answer too.

Thanks and welcome