>>>>> "Dave" == Dave Erickson <linuser at esox.us> writes: Dave> Brian Wall wrote: >> I have some proprietary command line utilities that I need to set up >> for non geeks. I'm going to be adding them to some sort of live >> distro (Knoppix most likely). I want to build an X front end so I >> don't have to teach a zillion switches (starting with what /dev/hda1 >> is and where drive C: went). Just one problem: I haven't even >> attempted GUI development on linux, and I don't know where to start. >> I want a basic frontend that will just pass paramters to the command >> line utilities. >> >> I've thought about using Apache/PHP to build a frontend, which would >> work, but inevitably I'd need something more robust. Besides, I may >> publish my code if it turns out to be useful and I'd rather not have >> server requirements for such a simple task. Anyone got suggestions? >> >> -Brian Dave> Could you do that in XUL? Dave> I'd like to create a XUL front end to iptables myself......... [I realize that this is late in the day, to respond to, but I've gotten behind in my list reading...] After having wrestled with a couple of attempts at using XUL/Mozilla, and having slogged through most of both Creating Applications with Mozilla and Rapid Application Development with Mozilla, I simply don't see the appeal. AFAICT, to write an application using Mozilla, you have to master not only XUL (that wouldn't be so bad), but also JavaScript, RDF, and a very, very complicated process of installing your new code into the guts of Mozilla. Worse than that, the process seems to be essentially without debug support. I have actually expressed this to the author of the RAD with Mozilla book, and his answer was essentially `yeah, that's true, but there are a lot of people who already grok JavaScript, XML and RDF, so it's not a problem.' Unless you are really gung-ho for this, I'd recommend using something much simpler, like Tcl/Tk. You only have to master ONE language, and then you are done. There are perl bindings for Tk, too, if you really know perl, but my impression is that those are only useful if you've already done some Tcl/Tk. Many people also swear by python + wxWidgets or GTk Two provisos: 1. I'd be DELIGHTED if someone out there could say "you ignorant knucklehead, you just do X (for some simple value of X) and you can whip together a Mozilla/XUL application in no time!" I'm far from being a Mozilla detractor --- if I was, I would never have ponied up for the two books and tried to work through them. 2. My feeling is that for rapid UI development, any solution without an interpreter you can type expressions at and watch the resulting UI is a non-starter. More power to you if you are willing to sit through a compile cycle (or stop a running Mozilla, install new software, and restart), but it ain't me, babe! Best, Robert _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota Help beta test TCLUG's potential new home: http://plone.mn-linux.org Got pictures for TCLUG? Beta test http://plone.mn-linux.org/gallery tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list