So… I just want to say a public “thanks” to Volker S. for his
work on the gr-display module.
It is not only functional, but the part of it that handles the QT
displays is separated enough, and simple enough, to make it seem like
a usable exemplar of how to handle basic QT GUI programming in GNU
Radio.
I copied his code in the show_text block into my block in order to add
a text display panel functionality without having to route it via the
flowgraph and comply with the restrictions the scheduler would place
on it w.r.t rate etc.
I was able to do this while essentially taking his code files verbatim
for the show_text_window, and copying his modifications to the
gr-display makefile into my own module’s makefile.
And, for the moment, everything works. I even repeated the process for
another of my custom C++ blocks in that module which is also much
better having its own text display panel. Mind you anything outside
the work functions all still seem like a bunch of “monkey see, monkey
do” but at least I managed to follow enough for that. I mean, my text
panel still has the clear and file save buttons on it from
show_text_window! So at some point I will have to dig a little into
the .ui file and adjust some things.
This is something which seems to me like it would make a useful
tutorial if someone knew enough about the subject to write it up.
I do have some trepidation about what happens when I add another block
to the module and gr_modtool might wipe out my makefile edits. Not
sure if it would do that, but maybe.
So, anyhow, again, “thanks”. There are a lot of people who do stuff
that makes this project so usable (for me build-gnuradio and
gr_modtool are HUGE helpers in particular without which I might not be
able to use GNU Radio at all) and hopefully they get some satisfaction
out of knowing someone really, really found their stuff useful and
enabling.
Having been inspired by that small success I am looking into the QT
Vector Sink as I have a chance, to see if I can manage something
similar to provide vector graph support to a custom block.
- John