Version 6 of SDX as a Utility Library

SDX as a Utility Library

This page is about potentially changing SDX so that it could be more easily be used as a subroutine inside another Starkit. This issue arose as a result of a remark on the ZipGuy's Windows SDX Shell Fix Starkit.

On that page jcw said

Wow, this is geat. Is there anything I can do to help make SDX fit in better? -jcw

Note that are some goals in considering SDX modifications:

Do not break or change the way SDX works on other platforms
Minimize the changes to keep maintenance low
Minimize the copies (or pseudo copies) of SDX in the code base
Maximize the flexibility

Yes some changes in SDX would be most welcome. I'm just not sure what make sense.

Why does it always do a

  windows withdraw .

Could you make an SDX library that was designed to be included in Starkits? Maybe change a name change to SDXlib or modifying SDX to be usable either way? Then one could just include that folder under lib in the app-xxx and call the routines. It would be nice to use whatever standard routines and procedures that make sense for a utility to evolve into a library. This is a more generic starkit issue.

Would/Does it make sense to source SDXlib and have it do the

 package require starkit
 if {[starkit::startup] eq "sourced"} return

as mentioned in the Starkit - How To's to make the routines available?

Perhaps it should check the first arg for "lib" (or no parameters) and behave differently? Also if it is to function as a utility subroutine, wouldn't the results of commands (in a variable?) and a return code need to be passed back to the caller so it can present the information to the user?

Just as a de-facto standard structure for folders within a starkit emerged and is widely accepted, perhaps one will for .lib style Starkits. Is kitten a good example? Should a first parameter of "-lib" or something indicate that the including program want to use it as a subroutine?

Food for thought.

SDX as a Library Example Application

For example, I'm interested in writing a caveman simple IDE that makes SDXing easy. It would be along the lines of app I have for my ALPHA testers which uses FreeWrap. It allows me to just send my patches as zipped code to them and have them compile and run. It's called RnR (short for Wrap aNd Run) and looks like this

Please excuse the colors I got carried away.

For the equivalent type of thing with SDX I'd think buttons like

Run (Kit)
Wrap + Run
Wrap Kit)
Run (xxx.vfs/)script
Update .kit
Unwrap
Edit Unwrapped (xxx.vfs) script
Browse .Kit (without unwrapping??)
File
Exit

or some such would be good.

In this case it would be slick to have the application control the output from SDX. For example issue warnings if xxx.kit can't be deleted file permission problems arise, SDX update fails etc.

Also I'd like to include a Wiki with SDX pages (web update from EQUI4 ?) Unfortunatley there doesn't seem to be a page on Including Wikikit in your Starkit from scratch

Anyway, Jump right in, anyone who has comments suggestions etc.

ZipGuy - Tried Wikit and got it working no problem. I was concerned about not being able to write new pages under Windows but this seems to work fine. Haven't tried Images yet.

20Jan05 jcw - Latest SDX can now be used as library, see [L1 ] for an example.

Category Tclkit