DDD Alternative that also Draws Pretty Pictures of Data Structures - c

Is there anything other than DDD that will draw diagrams of my data structures like DDD does that runs on Linux?
ddd is okay and runs, just kind of has an old klunky feeling to it, just wanted to explore alternatives if there are any.
The top part with the grid of this image is what I am talking about:

Don't you mind to look here (list of GDB front-ends)?
I suggest this list should be useful.

I've used zero bugs a few times. It can do custom visualization. I don't know if allows the users to effect the gui elements or just how it displays in the text listings. Check it out, www.zero-bugs.com.

For those that wanted an answer; you are looking for KDBG.

ZeroBugs data visualizations can be customized via Python scripts. The debugger is now available as open source (and free as in free beer, it can be used for commercial purposes). Check it out at http://zerobugs.codeplex.com/

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Custom Hierarchy View-- NSTreeController or Not?

I have a hierarchy of stuff I want to display (at the same time) in both outline view and a custom view. Sort of analagous to the Buck and Yacktman (Cocoa Design Patterns) example in CH. 29, but with Outline instead of Table. I'll most likely have a detail view available also.
I've only used NSTreeController with a single outline view before. Now I have found that "arrangedObjects" aren't what one would like them to be. Also found that (for some reason) all the 'canInsert' and it's relatives have value NO (for some reason I can't find (or find with google)). So so far, it appears that NSTreeController is little help in coordinating my two views. (By the way, I've always had my add, delete functions work directly on the model in the past.)
it seems to me now it would be better and simpler to go back to using a data source approach, and use an architecture more like Buck and Yacktman's figure 29.4 (page 357) with a handmade mediating controller.
This has been hanging around for quite a while with no takers.
Just to close this out:
I've tried both NSTreeController and data source versions. Currently, I'm sticking with data source, since it seems to give me more flexibility.
-- The program I'm working on has been very much experimental, trying a number of different things. A secondary goal is to make an application I will find useful, and ternaryily :-) maybe make a cleaned up version for distribution.

How to handle data from an external program on Mac OSx

I would like to make a program (I would prefer in C language) , but even in cocoa , that can take data from an external program (such as iTunes or adium) and will use them. For example i would like to take the data of a listbox or the text of the chat so as to manipulate it. I need a place to start. In windows I think it is possible with some apis that find the hWnd of a window and then find a pointer to the listbox or textbox. Please give me some info on how to start. Thanks you in advance.
It's not clear exactly what you want to do. It's either impossible or severely restricted.
For one thing, different applications use different ways of constructing a “listbox”—Cocoa applications use NSTableView, Carbon applications use DataBrowser, and GTK, Qt, and Java applications use even more different APIs. These do not all go through some common kind of list box thingy; each is an independent implementation.
(You could hope that either NSTableView or DataBrowser would be based on the other, but don't count on it.)
For another, it is impossible to obtain a pointer to that control. You cannot access another application's NSTableView or DataBrowser view or GTK/Qt/Java equivalent unless (and this only works for NSTableView) that application deliberately serves it up to you. It doesn't sound like that's your situation.
The closest you can get to that is Accessibility, which may be pretty close, but is unlikely to work with most applications not based on Cocoa.
Even then, the view may not be showing you all the data. A table view may be lazily populated, and a table view designed in imitation of the iOS UITableView may even never have all the data (because it only has what it can show).
(All of the above applies to every kind of view, not just table views. Collection views, text fields, buttons—same deal for all of them.)
The only way to get at the true, complete copy of the data is to ask the controller that owns it. And, again, that's impossible if the application is not specifically offering it to you. Not to mention, the application might not even have a controller (not object-oriented, not MVC, or just sloppily made).
… so as to manipulate it.
Getting the data in the first place is the easy part. It is nigh-impossible to mess with data in another application—for good reason.
The closest you're going to get to either of these goals is the Accessibility interfaces.

How do I adapt the look and feel of existing Tk apps using TTk?

slebetman says:
But Tk is only really ugly on Unixen because it defaults to a Motif theme (modern Tk is/should be replaced by TTk which is themeable).
Given two Tk apps which I still use occasionally, namely Gitk and ptkdb, how do I change their look and feel so that it matches the rest of the desktop environment (KDE 4)?
See: http://wiki.tcl.tk/gtklook.tcl for a quick way to make default Tk look less painfully ugly. I often use it in my own programs to hide the fact that it's actually written in tcl/tk.
The code given is tcl but you can easily use the options in an Xresources or Xdefaults file which I think should work in other languages as well. Or, it that doesn't work I believe there is an equivalent option method in Perl/Tk*.
Yes, the changes are not much. Basically just reducing pixel widths of things like borders and scrollbars. But it does look much nicer.
*note: I only mention Perl/Tk because you mentioned it in another post. As for modifying gitk, it is written in tcl so you can easily copy-paste the code somewhere.
Check out the TkDocs website, everything I know about modern Tk I learnt from there! Well and experience too of course ;-)
It will not be simple to retrofit it onto a substantial legacy application, but you could probably get surprisingly far by just prefixing the widgets with ttk::.

Is it possible to embed dynamic text into Keynote'09?

I wonder if it is possible to embed dynamic text into Keynote'09? I want to create a new presentation and run this presentation with different text messages (depending on the time of the day and day of the month).
You can insert formulas in tables. I don't have the english version of keynote open, so I can't tell you the exact names of the functions (guessing). You can do something like
=IF(MINUTE(NOW()) > 30; "> 30" ; "<= 30")
See the formula help. If you tell me what you want to achieve, I can give you further details.
I'm not aware of any direct or easy method to achieve what you are asking for.
However, with AppleScript you can access and change at least the title and the body boxes of the slides. This should be done prior to the presentation.
If the 'dynamic' text is to appear in a text box, you could use some scripting to modify the presentation's XML directly. An older Keynote's XML schema should be reasonably well (but not wholly) documented in the iWork Programming Guide, but as the '09 file format is not backwards compatible I don't know how much that would help.
You could try using an encapsulated post script image file. Postscript is a real programming language. I don't know if Keynote will accept it (or if it will cache a bitmap), but Cocoa loads EPS, and Keynote is cocoa.
On Mac OS X, an EPS file gets evaluated when it is opened and converted to a PDF in memory. This process can take a really long time, like 30 seconds, if this is the first time you've tried to open an EPS file since logging in.
Ah! Someone pointed out to me that you can embed Quartz Composer compositions into keynote. This is a good way to do it.

Modelling C applications

I would like to know if there are any tools that can help me model C applications i.e. Functional programming.
E.g. I'm currently building a shared library.
But to communicate my design visually, I need something like UML. I would like to do this so that the person reviewing my design need not read through 100s of pages of functions, variables and so on.
I have read about UML for C, which I'm considering.
If there is anything better out there, please let me know.
The bottom line is to visualize the design of C applications and modules without reading through 100s of pages of text, because it takes time and is difficult for the reviewers.
Any help in this area from the experts here would be much appreciated.
Thanks.
A well written text documentation brings you a far. Much further than any UML diagram could ever achieve.
You should split this in two parts:
What do you want to say?
What's the best way to saying it?
Whatever formalism you use to answer the second part, you should be sure it's not ambigous.
The good of UML is that a lot of semantic is already defined by the language so you don't have to include a definition of what those boxes, lines and arrows mean in a collaboration diagram.
But most importantly, documenting something means create a path for others to understand the subject you are documenting. A very precise description that offers no clue on how to read it is as good as none. So, use UML, Finite state machines, ER diagrams, plain English, whatever you want but be sure to include a logical path that your "readers" can follow to understand what's going on.
I had a friend that was a fan of "preciseness at all cost" and it would ask us to go through all the details before some sort of meaning would emerge.
I once ask him to do this experiment: on his next trip to an unknown city, he would have to carry the most precise map he could get. Much better, he would have to carry a 1:1 map of the city with every single detail exactly reported in scale. That way he couldn't get lost!
He declined but I would love to see him trying to use that map. Just even folding it! :)
Whatever you like. It's not a standard but many devs use it and understand it. If it does help you to communicate with other people and document your work -> its for you. If it just takes too much time and you think it's not effective, drop it. Also, don't bother with all details, as long as it resembles UML and your team can work with it, it's fine.
It's meant to help you, not waste you time.

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