Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T23:20:40.508Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

7 - Graphics, GUIs, and the Internet

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2012

Arjen Markus
Affiliation:
Deltares, Delft, The Netherlands
Get access

Summary

Interaction with the user via graphical presentation or graphical interfaces is an extremely important aspect of computing. It is also an area that depends heavily on the available hardware and the operating system. While much effort has been put into the various operating environments to hide the hardware aspect, programming a graphical user-interface (GUI) on MS Windows is completely different from doing so on Linux or Mac OS X.

Hardly any programming language defines how you can display results graphically or how to build a graphical user-interface. The common approach is to use a library that hides – if possible or desirable – the specifics of the operating system, so that a portable program results. Some libraries, however, have been designed to take advantage of exactly one operating system, so that the program fits seamlessly in that environment, at the cost of not being portable anymore. At the same time, you should not underestimate the effort and skills required for designing and building a useful and usable GUI [3].

For a Fortran programmer, the situation is a bit complicated: most GUI libraries are written with C, C++, and similar languages in mind. Furthermore, a GUI for a long-running computation should have different properties than one for filling in a database form. This chapter examines a variety of solutions.

Plotting the Results

The first type of graphical interaction to examine is the presentation of the results of a computation. The responses from the user are simple: leaf through the collection of plots – in many cases sequentially – and maybe change a display parameter here and there.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×