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Gui4Cli - Page 2

© John Chandler

keyboard shortcuts and commodity hotkeys, sound and speech, database listviews, file notification, pipes, and plenty of graphics support.

In the simplest case, the script provides a front-end to what is essentially a shell-tool... in the more elaborate cases, interaction between the GUI and the application can be made through ARexx, or even a special set of C functions if you want more direct control and like to get your hands dirty. Some applications can even be written completely with Gui4Cli... it's a complete language, after all.

The benefits aren't just for developers though. It's quite likely that you've used applications that are powerful, but the user interface renders them almost unusable - everyone has different ways of working. With Gui4Cli, the interface becomes malleable. G4C's "Visual Editing" functionality allows the user to rearrange the interface while it's running, and the application will never know or care - the user can drag things around, resize, relabel, to make the interface better fit their way of working. The really adventurous user may even add new features or rewrite the interface from scratch - the recent concept of 'skins' for things like MP3 players and web browsers seems slightly pale in comparison, don't you think?

Best of all, like most things Amigan, Gui4Cli is backed up by a community of support. The Gui4Cli archive contains a wealth of tutorial scripts as well as comprehensive documentation in AmigaGuide format, and installation is simplicity itself - you can start exploring the wonderful world of Gui4Cli straight away. Dimitris actively supports the language - responding to questions promptly on both the G4C mailing list and via private mail, maintaining a support website and online gallery of G4C scripts (he appears to try out every script, often offering valuable feedback), and generally tweaking and refining the Gui4Cli language according to new ideas and comments.

Gui4Cli is available from Dimitris' website as well as Aminet (in the dev/gui directory). If you haven't taken a look at it, now might be a good time... have fun!

For information on obtaining and using Gui4Cli try these links:

Gui4Cli Home Page: http://users.hol.gr/~dck/gcmain.htm

Gui4Cli Gui Galleria: http://users.hol.gr/~dck/gcguis.htm

Download from Aminet: http://de.aminet.net/aminet/dev/gui/Gui4...

G4C Mailing List: http://www.onelist.com/group/gui4cli

Dimitris Keletsekis: dck@hol.gr

The copyright of the article Gui4Cli - Page 2 in Amiga Software is owned by John Chandler. Permission to republish Gui4Cli - Page 2 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.