[Gllug] Toolkit to write graphical app in Perl?

[chris.wareham at btopenworld.com]

Rev Simon Rumble <simon at rumble.net> 
> 
> I have an Ipaq 3130 and want to use it to create a hardware, wireless
> networked mp3 stereo component.  As a stereo component, I want it to
> have a graphical front-end but not a GUI.  In other words, I want it
> to look and act like a piece of stereo gear, not something with
> windowing widgets like scrollbars and buttons.
> 
> Does anyone have any ideas as to what toolkit would be ideal for this
> kind of application?  I want to write it in Perl.
> 
> The Ipaq can run an X server, so anything that works under Linux will
> be fine.  I intend to have the application itself running on my
> server, with esd or other network-sound system piping audio output to
> the Ipaq.
> 

The Perl/Tk module includes a canvas widget that would allow you
to create a custom interface. Bear in mind that it'll run quite
slowly (slower than Java in my experience), but coding in it is
quite nice. If you not totally committed to Perl, but prefer
scripting languages to something like C/C++, then Tcl/Tk is also
well worth a look. Write the low level audio stuff in C, and add
a Tcl wrapper around it. I've found wrapping C code in Tcl easier
than wrapping it in Perl, but YMMV.

Finally, don't overlook the libart widget that can sit on top of
GTK+. I'm 99% sure it doesn't need any of the GNOME libraries, and
it has quite a nice API. Another C based alternative is Evas from
Rasterman (the Enlightenment head honcho), but I haven't done
anymore than look at the pretty demo that comes it. Rasterman's
library code normally has a very clean API, so it's well worth
checking out.

Chris

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