XForms:
GUI toolkit for X11
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Actual but inofficial versions of the Xforms Toolkit
( Please read the hints below. )
Main branch 1.2.x
The last official version to download is 1.2.5pre1 .
This version is not up to date, but can be updated by using the git repositiory.
(see below: download page )
The version provided here is inofficial but contains all changes from the git repository up to 2018-01-08.
xforms-1.2.5pre2_HW_20180108.tar.gz
UTF-8 branch 1.3.x
The last official version to download is 1.3.16 .
This version is far away form beeing actual. ( Reason: see below )
The version provided here is inofficial but contains a lot of changes to bring the
UTF-8 version to the actual state of 1.2.x and also contains all changes up to 2020-02-10.
This version contains different extentions which are necessary to generate XfVisu Programms.
The most important new feature : Each FL_OBJECT can hold up to 60 lines of associated data, which
is stored in the fd-file and offers be accessed by an external program, using named pipes as
link.
In addition :
The new version of 'fdesign' also offers additional methods for editing.
xforms-1.3.17pre1_upd_20230424.tar.gz
Hints concerning the XForms Library
The term XForms is an abbreviation for Forms Library, A Graphical User Interface Toolkit for X
XForms is a very lean grapics library. Developped several years ago by T.C.Zhao and Mark Overmars, it still offers
a good base for application development under X11.
Part of Xforms is a real fine documentation and a set of many small example programs which enable even beginners
a quick application development.
Xforms is highly portable.
The following sentence from the documentation says enough about portability and the fitness for systems that do not have KDE or Gnome:
The library uses only the services provided by the Xlib and should run on all workstations that have X installed on them.
Paying attention to downward compatibility is strictly rule to the further development of Xforms. For that, Xforms still is used in much
universitary research projects.
Unfortunately, newadays some distributions do not contain XForms any more.
The XForms Homepage contains some interesting informations,
as well you can find some screen shots of applications from science and industrial automation.
The actual maintainer is Jens Thoms Törring, PhD, who is maintaining the library practically alone.
With a lot of bug fixes, increasing the functionality and limits, he has improved th project massively.
Jens Thoms Törring uses a big part of his spare time to bring the project forward.
Generally, he works at a software developer ( free lancer ) and at the moment he is heavily occupied by projects.
That's why the downloadable actual version is far behind the state of actual development.
But: it should not be so simple:
Xforms, the main line, works with "ISO 8859-1" characters. xforms started long ago before UTF-8 appears.
Mr. Toerring also has experimented with UTF-8 ( versions 1.3.x )
According to Mr Toerring, there are some problems related to the rendering of displaying characters, therefore this part
stays experimental until these problems are solved.
Because we are working in the "Umlaut lands" ( Germany, Austria, France as well ) we use these
UTF-8 versions. We have not found any problems for the kind of software we use and write.
For us, the main problem of the 1.3.x versions has been a different:
The 1.3x line has been a very early fork of the main line and each change of the main line increases the differences
of both lines. We have had fear to be at the dead end.
Based on 1.2.5pre1 and 1.3.16 we have changed 1.3.16 to reduce the differences, bringing 1.3x to the state of
1.2.x as close as possible. Actually, the most source files of both lines are identical.
It is aggreed, that this changed 1.3.16 version will be the base of a version 1.3.17, coming in future.
(To say it clear: The files above are not a fork. not yet and also not preparation to do it.
These are only files with a more actual state of development. )
Generally: Xforms is easy to install:
- Download the latest version from the
XForms Downloadpage.
Chose the most actual Version, maybe also one of this page.
Hint: It is shurely a good idea to download the documentation file "xforms.pdf".
- additional libraries : They are part of each distribution.
for openSuse Leap 15.0 a.o. :
- libXft-devel
- libXpm-devel
- libjpeg8-devel.
for Rasperry Pi ( Raspbian und Ubuntu Mate)
- apt-get install xorg-dev
- apt-get install libjpeg8-dev
- apt-get install libXext-dev
- apt-get install libXpm-dev
- apt-get install libformsgl-dev
- apt-get install libgl-dev
- apt-get install libgl1-mesa-dev
- Unpack the archive into a directorys and change into it. Then:
- ./configure
- make
The next commands need root privileges:
Thereafter the Xforms libraries are installed, also the GUI designer program "fdesign".
"fdesign" can be found in /usr/local/bin.
While linking of xforms applications maybe you will need the option -lXpm.
© 2000 ... 2023 Werner Heisch
Edition Date of this page (MET) :
2023-04-23 16:43:12
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