Kylix 3 Linux

For those familiar with the Borland approach to C++ programming and the IDE, this interesting tool will look very familiar. There are a few differences brought about by the use of the Qt widget library underneath the Borland wrappers. The transition from Windows looks so easy here. Then, when you try to run your executable from Konqueror or from the shell, it does not work. Welcome to Linux World, friends. Please be prepared for a bit of a steep learning curve if you are new to Linux. Get a couple of good books like Red Hat 9.0 Bible and Running Linux to help ease the transition. In order to deploy and run your program yourself on your own machine or on someone else's, visit http://www.efg2.com/Lab/Library/Kylix/deployment.htm as well as www.rick-ross.com/ and Brian Long's site (www.blong.com/) for a discussion of these and other issues. The shell is still very useful and indispensable in Linux, and is an important part of getting Kylix 3 ported to RH 9.0 (target was RH 7.2). Please see http://mitglied.lycos.de/AndreasHausladen/ for all the details.

Linux Essentials

A word here if you intend to use your Linux machine for building an intranet in your own environment (home or office) and make some use of the various server capabilities that are already built in. Please get a good book or two and I recommend the RH 9.0 Bible and ... book for all the essential information. I am not going to steal their contribution here. However, I will offer a quick how to on a simple home intranet that can communicate internally among the computers and possibly to the internet.

Each computer on the intranet needs to have an ethernet card (10/100) and you need a hub for the interconnections. You will need patch cables to go from each computer to the hub. One of the computers needs to be the "Gateway" if you are going to the internet. It needs an additional ethernet card to connect to the DSL modem via a loopback cable that usually comes with the DSL kit. The crux of the problem is to assign a set of IP addresses to each computer and an IP mask. In Linux these computers can also be named something as well (e.g. mycomputer.com), but in this setup we are leaving out any DNS server function; hence for Windows computers, only use the IP. A class C network uses the addresses such as 192.168.1.2 and net mask 255.255.255.0. So number your computers from 3 to whatever and use the 2 as the Gateway reserving 1 for the DSL modem (192.168.1.1). At that point the lights on your hub should be burning as well as the light on the card. File sharing via NSF server and ftp via FTP server can be started. RH lets you configure the modem from a window environment, but the more powerful way is to directly manipulate the configuration files for each server.

In this offering you will find a text editor that uses a text editor control, a spreadsheet that uses StringGrid control with all the functions and cell evaluation as well as graphic display. There is a file explorer, a picture editor for doing some manipulation, and a database application. Then there is a text editor that uses no controls at all but is basic graphic and event programming for your consideration. Then, a rich text editor is offered, again with no control use whatsoever. The format is my creation to make it easy to parse. It will handle tables and graphics but be warned, this is no Word or WordPerfect equivalent at all. To make matters worse, this will also act as a web browser for html formating.

Our example here is a text editor with a fair number of capabilites but certainly no Word or WordPerfect. There are times when you need a simple editor to handle configuration files or whatever. Some file formats are developed here and how to save them. A spell checker is developed from scratch as well as an index making tool and a listbox editor. Finally, the editor can add some html formatting for your web page if a simple editor approach is needed.

TextEd

Our example here is a spreadsheet with a fair number of capabilites including cell evaluation and graphical display of data and data fitting, but certainly no Excel, QuattroPro, or Lotus clone. So why bother? Well, for one thing it could be a good teaching tool for yourself. It also gives you a lightweight tool that you can program to satisfy your own functional needs. Whatever you want, it will be hard-coded and execute at blinding speeds. This application also contains some ways of saving data where you are in control of the format, and it is not all text either. I think this is far superior than having the framework do all the IO for you and you have not a clue as to what is going on.

SpreadLite

Our example here is a minimal database application with some details on using SQL queries to build tables and retrieve data. I could only get the MySQL database that came with RH 9.0 to work with the Kylix 3 tool. The downloaded 4.0 was not recognized. I could not get Interbase to start. And SQLite incorporated into the Borland programs would not compile or function properly after compiling. Thus there are some real issues here. I created the database itself using the shell program provided by MySQL. See mysql.com for details on their system and get their manual for some good advice.

DataBase

Our example here is a picturebox like application with a fair number of capabilites for manipulating bitmaps of one form or another. Qt only provides 2 bit, 8 bit, and 24 (32) bit support for png, gif, jpeg, and bmp formats. That is all folks. There are some additional routines I have added including special effects, resizing with resampling (nice!), color reduction using octree optimization (nice!), and a simple picture cropping capability. The way Qt does the color table is beyond my comprehension, but I can get it to work with a strange translation. If you are unfamiliar with the Scanline function, then take a look at some of this because it is used for bit maninpulation. As usual, my code is very simplistic and not too bright so be forewarned. It works a lot like I think so I can understand it better and elegance is not only absent, it is not even a design concept.

PictureBox

Our example here is a classic colorpicker like application with a fair number of ways of expressing the color depending on your interest.

ColorPicker

Our example here is a classic database application, the only one I could get to work with the IDE (MySQL that came with RH 9). Create the database from the shell using the shell program that comes with MySQL that you can download. Then build it all with queries.

DataBase

Use the spreadsheet built into the application to do more global data input with the ability to copy the data from the start page to the spreadsheet built on SpreadLite code.

DataBase-SpreadSheet