I agree with aNt, please post the changes to the overlays so we can fix the events for our guis =)
Terje
I’d would be very nice indeed to have this as part of the Xith3D distribution.
As we havn’t frozen the API yet, improvements to the API should definitally be discussed considered. The sooner the better.
Can your xith3d apps be compiled with gcj/JET to native code like other SWT apps? Being able to compile a Xith3D app that used the userinterface package into native code would be a big plus I think. Currently you can do it with LWJGL - but not if you’re using the userinterface package.
Will.
First for UJ’s 3 questions,
1 - The reason that simply porting JoGL to SWT is not
enough to run Xith3D, is because Xith3D is dependent
on AWT components and AWT events. All of that crap
had to be abstracted out to get Xith3D to work with
SWT obviously since SWT DOES NOT use AWT events
or components. These are the changes that will guarantee
that most, if not all, existing Xith3D apps will not work
with my version of Xith3D.
2 - Sort of addressed this question above, but to be
explicit, yes these changes did need to be made in
multiple packages. I’m thinking about some further
refactoring of my own Xith3D version to divide even more
things out a little better and make it easier to work
in the code base. I think that there could be a very small,
core set of stuff that is Xth3D. The rest would be
add on projects. The ‘userinterface’ package represents
a good example of something that should probably be
an add-on package.
3 - Never actually considered the Eclipse people, but that’s
a good idea. I have had my head down in the
implementation of segmentation algorithms, so I have not
been keeping up with where Eclipse is, or what they may
need. As only the JoGL, and the Xith3D projects help me
in implementing segmentation using level sets. That
said, if you know how to get in touch with those people,
perhaps the Eclipse project would be a good place to
host this set of tools. As opposed to some medical
imaging geek’s blog, that may or may not be updated
once a year.
You seem to know a lot about Eclipse/SWT. We should
talk, how do you send personal messages with this
website ? Is it possible ?
-TOBYToby,
Can you post somewhere your changed version alone with original version of Xith3D you started to patch, so I can take a look on possible API changes?
I see no reason why we should avoid merging of your changes with the main source tree, so earlier this will happen, easier it will be.
Yuri
[quote]First for UJ’s 3 questions,
You seem to know a lot about Eclipse/SWT.
[/quote]
Unfortunately nothing useful in this situation. I’m just an ordinary Eclipse user. I have a Swing/Java3D application and I’ve been looking for alternatives because Swing hasn’t been that good in the past and Java3D kind of faded away.
I thought SWT/Xith3D would be a good combination. Eclipse has a lot of momentum and is lacking a 3D renderer. Also it would be possible to produce pure native executables for Windows and Linux using Excelsior Jet if you want.
So, er, what’s going on then?
I wonder if, ummm, the Xith team might possibly consider porting their code permanently over to LWJGL? Seeing as it works with SWT (via a little adapter we now have) and AWT (via a JOGL) now?
Cas 
Cas,
At least I am thinking about this and already made some tests. As of SWT, I still don’t have a version to take a look how it works and what has been done to factor out AWT dependencies.
Yuri
Toby,
I’ve been working with the userinterface package and have ran into a couple of the problems that you have mentioned. One problem was differentiating between mouse events in the scene and those in the UIWindow. I wanted to be able to have a JSlider that controls the position of an object, but also wanted to be able to rotate an object in the scene with the mouse. This capability isn’t quite supported with the user interface package.
Now, I’m trying to be able to add a scrollbar to the UIWindow to scroll through the JPanel, but am stuck. (Has anyone been able to do this?)
So, I was wondering if you might post your version of Xith to learn more about what you’ve done? The userinterface package is extremely important and am thrilled that it supports Swing at all, but it can definitely be done better.
Thank you!
Jason
It would be great to have a way to use Xith without any dependency on AWT. Makes it easier to use the IBM JDK on Linux for example.
We have experience with the SWT OpenGLCanvas and it works on Windows and Linux. It’s just a wrapper to the OpenGL state machine using JNI, as it should be.
It would be nice if we could replace this with lwjgl and then have Xith3D on top of that I like layered structures with their own responsibility.
How much time would this take ?
[quote]So, er, what’s going on then?
I wonder if, ummm, the Xith team might possibly consider porting their code permanently over to LWJGL? Seeing as it works with SWT (via a little adapter we now have) and AWT (via a JOGL) now?
[/quote]
Say, I read on the lwjgl site that it is restricted to one window … Does that mean that I cannot have multiple OpenGL views of the same object open, drawn on different canvases ?
LWJGL’s default context management is designed for games clients - so there’s only one context, which is likely to be a fullscreen window.
However LWJGL has an SWT adapter which allows it to run with SWT and multiple contexts; it also works with JOGL-created contexts. Effectively this allows you to use the LWJGL binding layer independently of anything else. Very convenient if you prefer the API but have exotic context management requirements.
Cas
Great, I will be looking into it
tgeorge: could you put the code online, so someone can look into merging it into Xith3D ?
It’s also a good idea not to make Xith3D depentent on AWT events. A generic functionality could be provided, which would be much cleaner, or much more portable across different JVMs, some of which do not have AWT/Swing.
Has there been any progress on this? I’m interested in possibly using SWT for Jogl.
Sean
If you’re going to use SWT you should use LWJGL, not JOGL
Cas
I only looked at LWJGL briefly and it looked like it didn’t support windowed contexts. I’m writing a visualization application for my company and need to be able to run in a window.
Sean
LWJGL does support a single window, out of the box, although officially it’s a debugging mode. However, if you want to use SWT, LWJGL can be used with SWT-created contexts as well, unlike JOGL.
Cas
any sweet sexy news on this dudes? ;D
I completely agree with Cas…if you want to use SWT you HAVE to use LWJGL, because it has a damn good SWT binding…it’s sure?
How can I be so sure about it? ???
Because I coded that damn binding ;D
If you are interested in any info about it feel free to ask me…currently it works on Windows but someday (when my PhD projects are over : ) it will work on Linux, too
i thought SWT run under MacOSX also?
Is it just as simple to add a SWT componect to Xith3d
as a swing one? do u do it in the same way?
Hmmm…SWT is also present under MacOS but as you might see from the Eclipse project website there’s still place for large improvements :-/
Anyway I just did use to bind SWT with LWJGL: This way ANY application running on top of LWJGL can automatically render into a SWT Canvas.
That basically means that if Xith3D uses LWJGL 0.9 (with SWT support) then you can create a trivial SWT Shell including the usual menus, buttons and a SWTCanvas.
This class is derived from the SWT Canvas in order to support custom OpenGL rendering in it 