Masr-"a simple gtk/cairo canvas gui"

Status:	Under Development
Location:	http://github.com/bdcht/masr
Version:	0.1

Description

masr is a gtk cairo framework based on GooCanvas. It provides a GUI application template class (Masr) with:

• a menu bar
• the main drawing canvas (a Canvas widget)
• a status bar
• a dbus server

It provides also a dbus-based python client that allows a complete remote control of the Masr application instance. New features can be developed as plugins.

masr was developed initially for drawing graphs with the grandalf framework The code dedicated to graph drawing is found in the plugins/graph directory. Coordinates of nodes and edge routing points are computed by grandalf and node/edge views (gtk widgets on the canvas) are managed by the plugin.

Installation

masr depends on pygtk, numpy, dbus and goocanvas. Most _Linux distributions have packages for these dependencies (python-numpy, python-dbus, python-pygoocanvas, python-gtk2, ...) so the installation is straightforward for Linux platform.

For _Windows, you will obviously need to install gtk/pygtk libraries from http://www.pygtk.org/dowloads.html. I've used /pygtk-all-in-one-2.24.2.win32-py2.7.msi/ installer (which provides goocanvas support as well). The numpy installer is found here: http://pypi.python.org/pypi/numpy I have tested grandalf/masr on Windows XP SP3 with Python 2.7.

Quickstart

The "raw naked" Masr template class provides a window equiped with some gtk widgets (menu,statusbar,crcanvas,etc). Simply do:

python

>>> from masr import Masr >>> a = Masr() >>> a.run()

Then we can use the masrdbc script to "connect" to the Masr instance through D-bus and control the entire app :

python

$ masrdbc Welcome to masr d-bus client. you are connected to the running Masr() instance: app = <masr.main.Masr ...

>>> app.screen <masr.window.gtkWindow object at 0x8d6f20c> >>> app.screen.canvas <Canvas object at 0x8d7175c (GooCanvas at 0x8df6040)>

masr/main.py

Contains the main class:

• Masr

Masr.

This class is the base template for any GUI application. The main class may inherit from Masr, and redefine the 'start' and 'end' or 'step' methods.

• start() is called just before entering the GUI mainloop, so its a good place to put everything needed to setup the scene,
• step() is called inside the mainloop,
• end() is called after the mainloop to clean up everything.

The run() method of Masr will also setup all loaded plugins (modules). Such plugin is loaded if it appears in the Masr.plugins list. The default usage is:

python

>>> a=Masr() >>> a.run()

The init of Masr instance will setup the gtk window, GUI elements, and the crcanvas widget. (The graph plugin is loaded by default.)

masr/window.py

Contains the gtk window classes:

• Window
• gtkWindow(Window)

gtkWindow.

The initWindow creates gtk objects Window, adds a VBox widget in it, creates the GUI elements (menubar, VPaned widget and statusbar), and finally the canvas (in a ScrolledWindow widget) is added to the VPaned. The show_all() method is called later in the mainloop only. The mainLoop() method is called by Masr.run() to handle all events on widgets by starting the main gtk event loop. Event handlers are supposed to be set up in start() or during plugins init.

masr/gui.py

Contains the menubar and statusbar gtk widget definition.

• gtkgui

masr/canvas.py

Contains the Canvas wrapper. This branch of masr relies on the pygoocanvas python wrapper (simply do apt-get install python-pygoocanvas). This library allows for interesting export to various formats.

• Canvas

GooCanvas

The canvas region is setup as an infinite scrolling area. A 'Zoomer' provides canvas scaling through Ctrl-[+-] or Ctrl-mouse-scroll.

masr/serv.py

Contains the dbus 'server' socket and associated methods.

masrdbc

Contains the dbus 'client' python interactive console.

masr/plugins/utils.py

masr/plugins/graph/

See plugins/graph/README.