Added article for FLTK Ada binding

2 files changed, 71 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/project/templates/fltkada.html b/project/templates/fltkada.html
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+
+{% extends "base.html" %}
+
+
+
+{% block title %}FLTK Ada{% endblock %}
+
+
+
+{% block content %}
+
+<h4>FLTK Ada Binding</h4>
+
+<p>Estimated status: 40-45% complete</p>
+
+
+<h5>25/6/2017</h5>
+
+<p>FLTK, or by its full name the <a href="http://www.fltk.org/" target="_blank">Fast Light Toolkit</a>,
+is a graphical widget toolkit noteworthy for being so lightweight that it is commonly statically linked.
+Projects that make use of it include the <a href="http://www.dillo.org/" target="_blank">Dillo</a> web
+browser, the <a href="http://flwm.sourceforge.net/" target="_blank">FLWM</a> X window manager, and the
+<a href="http://www.equinox-project.org/" target="_blank">Equinox Desktop Environment</a>. There are
+bindings for it in several languages, including Python, Perl and Ruby, but not Ada. Until now!</p>
+
+<p>This is a spinoff from Adapad, and so despite not yet being complete it can be at least guaranteed to
+be enough to write a text editor. It's a thick, loosely coupled binding, accomplished by first exporting
+the interface to C, then importing that to Ada. Attempted usage of the internal C interface as a binding
+on its own is not supported.</p>
+
+<p>A typical FLTK Hello World program in Ada:
+<code>
+    with
+        FLTK.Widgets.Groups.Windows,
+        FLTK.Widgets.Boxes;
+
+    function Hello_World return Integer is
+
+        My_Win : FLTK.Widgets.Groups.Windows.Window :=
+            FLTK.Widgets.Groups.Windows.Create (100, 100, 200, 200, "Untitled");
+
+        My_Box : FLTK.Widgets.Boxes.Box :=
+            FLTK.Widgets.Boxes.Create (50, 50, 100, 100, "Hello, World!");
+
+    begin
+
+        My_Win.Add (My_Box);
+        My_Win.Show;
+
+        return FLTK.Run;
+
+    end Hello_World;
+</code>
+</p>
+
+<p>Aside from reworking the types to better fit the strongly typed philosophy of Ada, the entire library has
+been structured to avoid explicit heap usage. As you can see from the above example, the intended use is to
+declare FLTK objects on the stack. Allocation and deallocation of the C++ internals is handled automatically.</p>
+
+<p>A few other minor changes were involved, such as requiring widgets to be explicitly added to a group rather
+than implicitly being added to the last group not yet ended. At the moment the package specifications should
+provide sufficient information to allow programmers to work with the library.</p>
+
+<p>Git repo is <a href="/cgit/cgit.cgi/fltkada.git/" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
+
+{% endblock %}
+
+
diff --git a/project/templates/index.html b/project/templates/index.html
index 5c7af6a..fd97587 100644
--- a/project/templates/index.html
+++ b/project/templates/index.html
@@ -16,6 +16,9 @@
 {% block content %}
 
 <ul class="index">
+    <li><a href="/fltkada.html">FLTK Ada Binding</a><br>
+        <span class="post">(Posted 25/6/2017)</span></li>
+
     <li><a href="/stvcount.html">Single Transferable Vote Counter</a><br>
         <span class="post">(Posted 19/2/2017)</span></li>