Think outside the Window?

I see that Windows 8 is more of the Non-start button thinking. Like that button and menus were the problem? There is nothing new to get excited about, computers are in a rut. So what's wrong with that? Why now, do we have to shake it all up?

What is it with hardware manufacturers? Every singing ad is annoying as all hell, and leaves you with a WTF feeling. Everything is being big loud and annoying to get my money?

Trouble is that I still want control! I want to be able to do what I want and when I want.

Recently I took my Kindle Fire with me, to show a friend a picture of my dog. We both have the same breed, but her's is tiny and mine is big. That when I discovered that software had all been updated (on the cloud). And what was on my Fire would no longer give you full functionality (a big picture) without WiFi connection being active. My big dog was reduced to a postage stamp, and I'm still unhappy.

I'm still hoping all this non-windows, windows, is just another fad, that will pass quickly.  Upgrade-O-Mania was not going to last forever, get over it!

Unhappy upgrader

Well, I have to admit that I absolutely HATE Ubuntu (12.04)!!!  Which means I hate all up to date versions of Linux running Gnome, as of this moment.  WHAT THE FUCK?  When last we spoke, I was worried because I had fallen off the Upgrade Grid with a version that was now so obsolete, that client software was failing to upgrade correctly.  So, I took a deep breath, and upgraded the whole operating system from CD image (scratch).

This new one is suppose to be FASTER.  The question is FASTER than WHAT?  Not faster than what I had!!!

Second, they MOVED EVERYTHING!  Menus are now pulled off the open window and lodge themselves into a common place.  A hidden common place!  What kind of shit is that?  Then, the pop-down menu style launcher is no more.  Want some privacy?  Fuck that, it keeps track of the last 5 files you opened, like it or not, with no way to drop them from view in your explorer program.  Be careful about who's looking over your shoulder, and you last gawked at, even in passing.

Even though, I did an upgrade, none of my servers were upgraded.  Now, I'm not talking about remote machines on the network, I mean software servers like MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Sqlite3.  It doesn't even have the LibreOffice Base installed (by default).  It's like; Data Servers, you don't need no stinking data servers!

I'm 52 years old, and my blood is boiling on this upgrade.  I'll get use to it, but it's SHIT!  Whoever at GNU is responsible for this Gnome, should be shot in his gentleman areas.

Glade

This one for the Systems Programmers out there:

Years ago, Glade was a GUI editor for C users only, a lot like MFC/Java.  Well a few years back, it became Python friendly too, but who uses Python?  As of recently, I now use Python- that's who!  So, I began to wonder about Glade all over again, and my oh my how it's changed.

Back in the bad old days Glade made a make file, and a buncho support files for C and Gtk use.  It was what is best described as a mess.  You'd look at it and say; ok, it's somewhat useful.  Now however, Glade does all the same things in drawing a GUI interface from the basic widgets of Gtk, but now they are packed neatly into an XML file.  This XML file is then processed by your programming language, to setup your form design widgets.  And that's what so forkin neat about it.  Now your code can share dialog boxes, like the idea of common dialog boxes in Windows.  How cool is that?  So you could Prototype in Python, and then Compile Binary in C later, for better speed.  Woohoo!

But making your application from Glade work, is like the worsted described mystery in all Linux programming.  There are two complications here;  First, GtkBuilder vs. Libglade.  And Libglade is already obsolete, however it's what 90% of the tutorials on the Internet use.  Second, the PyGtk tells you there are OnButtonClicked events predefined, which really doesn't tell you how to use a menu item, or what these predefined names are... 

Like everything in the Gtk, you'd better have some crib-notes close by.  So understand that in the Gtk, unlike everywhere else, a menu is activated, as a button is clicked.  Everywhere else, a menu is nothing more than a button.  So the events are 'activate' and 'clicked', and finding those in the Signals controls is not very hard, but now we have to deal with the trick of Libglade vs GtkBuilder.  When Gtk said it was predefined, they meant IN GtkBuilder only!  Again, most of the tutorials are in Libglade, which is where it all comes off the rails.  Finding those predefined names isn't so hard, once your using GtkBuilder- they are the first event option in the list.

What really going to change though is the start up.  Here's a basic Python file, that has both (Libglade commented out).

#!/usr/bin/env python

import sys
try:
     import pygtk
      pygtk.require("2.0")
except:
      pass
try:
    import gtk
      import gtk.glade
except:
    print "Glade/Gtk failure!"
    sys.exit(1)

class RawTemplate:
    """
    The RAWTemplate class
    RAW stands for nothing, this is just a skeleton class to      create GTK
    applications quickly with common dialogs already in place ready to go.
    (THIS RAW has been altered for use with Glade)
   
    Program requires the following set:
     
    """
    #--------------------------------------------------
    def __init__(self):
        self.gladefile = "./booger.glade" 
        builder = gtk.Builder()
        builder.add_from_file(self.gladefile)
        self.window = builder.get_object("window1")

        # self.wTree = gtk.glade.XML(self.gladefile)
        # self.window = self.wTree.get_widget("window1")
        if (self.window):
            self.window.connect("destroy", gtk.main_quit)
        self.window.show_all()


if __name__ == "__main__":
    RawTemplate()
    gtk.main()

***Pardon the scrolling, if you copy/paste this into a text editor, it works fine.  I can't find the good old BLOCKQUOTE in this Blogger editor, so it's messing the python code up.

Anyway, this article was not intended as a tutorial, only as comment on the mystery statements made by all the tutorials out there.  Once most of you are brighter than me, you shouldn't have any problem with this.

Fork me, FALLING OFF THE GRID?

When I got a Ubuntu machine, the Upgrade Manager appeared with a check box, that upgraded the WHOLE operating system to the latest version. Something I was quite hesitant to do, once old versions of Linux use to take no prisoners, and repartition hard drives before installing (loosing all your data). Well, once I got BIG ASS EXTERNAL 2TB hard drive to make backups on, I got my nerve. I checked that box, and seamlessly it was done, and it became expected by the user. There was my fatal mistake, in trusting that check box to show time and again, for I haven't seen it again for at least 3 version releases.

NOW, Upgrade Manager is prompting me for the CD for the latest version to do installs. Which is not such a problem because I have downloaded the CD image, but the Upgrade Manager has chosen to “Ignore” it. Meaning- DO YOUR OWN UPGRADE BUCCEROO!

So with much fear and trembling, here we go again! I'm trapped into upgrades I really don't want to make, in order to own the newest and spiffiest versions of... I really don't know why I need to upgrade, other than to keep UPGRADE MANAGER working correctly? It's sad, but true!