Perl Wrappers for the FLTK library
----------------------------------

This package provides a Perl module which will allow you to create graphical
user interfaces in Perl using the Fast Light ToolKit. Note that this module
wraps the development version of FLTK (i.e. FLTK2), don't even think about 
trying to compile this against a FLTK 1.0.x release. I don't plan on making 
anything back compatible with FLTK 1.

What you need to build this module:
-----------------------------------
  Perl 5 (duh...)
    http://www.perl.com/
  A FLTK 2 CVS snapshot (known to work with fltk-cvs-20000920)
    http://www.agilinux.net/fltk/

Prep Work:
----------

Before you build this module you need to patch and rebuild your FLTK sources.
There are 3 diff files in the patches subdirectory of this package. These
patches fix a bug in Fl_Text_Display and modify Fl_Text_Editor to allow perl
access to its key binding methods. These patches are completely backwards 
compatible, you'll probably need to recompile any apps using Fl_Text_Editor,
but the API is not affected. Apply the patches thusly:

    patch /path/to/Fl_Text_Display.cxx ./patches/Fl_Text_Display.cxx.diff
    patch /path/to/Fl_Text_Editor.cxx ./patches/Fl_Text_Editor.cxx.diff
    patch /path/to/Fl_Text_Editor.H ./patches/Fl_Text_Editor.H.diff

Then rebuild FLTK.

Hopefully I can bribe the FLTK developers into accepting these patches into 
the main FLTK source, because this patch nonsense really sucks...

Building this module:
---------------------

Compiling this module is pretty straight forward and follows the standard
Perl module build process. Simply run:

    perl Makefile.PL
    make
    make test (optional, but recommended)
    make install (as root)

The Makefile.PL should be able to find your FLTK headers and library ok, but if
it fails to locate them, you may have to specify their location. If that's 
the case, run the Makefile.PL with the following arguments:

    perl Makefile.PL --with-fltk-libs=/path/to/fltk/lib/dir \
                     --with-fltk-includes=/path/to/fltk/include/dir

Note that the --with-fltk-includes argument assumes your identifying the 
directory that the FL directory is in. For example, if your FLTK stuff is 
sitting in the FLTK source tree at $HOME/fltk-cvs-20000920 then you'd use the
following command:

    perl Makefile.PL --with-fltk-libs=$HOME/fltk-cvs-20000920/lib \
                     --with-fltk-includes=$HOME/fltk-cvs-20000920

Documentation
-------------

Documentation for this module is currently non-existant. There are several 
example scripts in the examples directory of this package. Many of these are 
exact counterparts of the C++ examples that come with FLTK. This module 
attempts to emulate the C++ approach of using FLTK as closely as possible, so 
consult the FLTK documentation on how to use specific widgets, since most of 
that is as relevant to the Perl bindings as it is to the C++ library itself.

Matt Kennedy <matt@jumpline.com>
Last Updated Thu Sep 27, 2000