From: Olof-Joachim Frahm Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 16:04:56 +0000 (+0200) Subject: Add image viewer post. X-Git-Url: http://repo.macrolet.net/gitweb/?p=blog.git;a=commitdiff_plain;h=06a259505a20f6a0f0fd12a38deb7a3ee1be773d Add image viewer post. --- diff --git a/image-viewer.post b/image-viewer.post new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9c7dcd0 --- /dev/null +++ b/image-viewer.post @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ +;;;;; +title: Image viewers and other systems tools +tags: lisp,tachikoma +date: 2015-6-12 16:20:23 +format: md +;;;;; + +After all the trouble I went through with trying to get an image viewer to work +in CL (due to the used GTK+ 3 library being problematic, that is, unmaintained) +maybe a different approach is more viable. It would be possible to use one +existing program as a front end by calling it via IPC. So e.g. `feh`, my +go-to program for that task, already has configurable keybindings; it should be +a smaller problem to remote control it (even with adding some code). + +However, as with all these *nix combinators, it feels like a mish-mash of tools +intertwined and not-quite the optimal solution. + +Consider what happens if you want to add new functionality, i.e. new widgets. +In that case composability breaks down since `feh` is relatively minimal and +therefore doesn't have much options in terms of providing different menus, +input widgets, etc. Therefore you'd have to find either a different viewer +with more scripting capabilities (which is counter to the "one-tool" mantra), +or switch to a more integrated approach to have this component as an internal +part of your environment. + +Obviously now would be the time for either components/CORBA, or a Lisp Machine +to hack up other programs. + +Or switch to Qt. It seems that the bindings for that framework are more stable +than the GTK bindings and additionally they (Qt) just have more people working +on the framework. + +Since one of the problems with the GTK bindings is the relatively recent +upgrade to GTK+ 3, there seems to be a point in using the previous version 2 +instead, considering that even GIMP didn't update yet.