contiki/doc/ctk.txt

This file describes the interface between the generic part of the
Contiki toolkit (CTK) and the architecture specific parts of CTK (the
so-called ctk-draw and ctk-arch layers).

Author: Adam Dunkels <adam@dunkels.com>
Version: $Id: ctk.txt,v 1.3 2005/03/15 15:53:51 oliverschmidt Exp $


* Introduction *
----------------

The purpose of the ctk-arch and the ctk-draw is to act as an interface
between the CTK and the actual hardware of the system on which Contiki
is run. The ctk-arch takes care of the keyboard input from the user,
and the ctk-draw is responsible for drawing the CTK desktop, windows
and user interface widgets onto the actual screen.

In order to aid in implementing a ctk-draw module, a text-based
ctk-draw called ctk-conio has already been implemented. It conforms to
the Borland conio C library, and a skeleton implementation of said
library exists in lib/libconio.c. If a more machine specific ctk-draw
module is to be implemented, the instructions in this file should be
followed.


* Keyboard input *
------------------

Keyboard input is implemented using two functions:

  unsigned char ctk_arch_keyavail(void);

and

  ctk_arch_key_t ctk_arch_getkey(void);

The ctk_arch_keyavail() function should return zero if there are no
keys in the keyboard input queue, and non-zero if there are key presses
waiting in the input queue. The ctk_arch_getkey() function should
remove the first key press on the input queue, and return it to the
caller. The ctk_arch_key_t type should usually be typedef'ed to be
"char", but some architectures use other C types for representing
key presses (such as the 16-bit short type).

The usual typedef looks like the following:

   typedef char ctk_arch_key_t;

and should be put into a file named "ctk-arch.h", together with the C
#defines described below.

Apart from the C functions that handles keyboard input, CTK requires a
few special characters such as the cursor keys and the enter
key. These are #defined as C macros in the "ctk-arch.h" file. The
following macros must be defined:

   CH_CURS_DOWN
   CH_CURS_LEFT
   CH_CURS_RIGHT
   CH_CURS_UP
   CH_DEL
   CH_ENTER
   CH_ESC
   CH_KEY


* Screen drawing *
------------------

The ctk-draw module takes care of the actual screen drawing for CTK by
implementing a handful of functions that are called by CTK. The
functions will be described in detail below, but are listed here for
convenience:

   void ctk_draw_init(void);
   unsigned char ctk_draw_width(void);
   unsigned char ctk_draw_height(void);
   void ctk_draw_clear(unsigned char clipy1, unsigned char clipy2);
   void ctk_draw_menus(struct ctk_menus *menus);
   void ctk_draw_clear_window(struct ctk_window *window,
                              unsigned char focus,
                              unsigned char clipy1, unsigned char clipy2);
   void ctk_draw_window(struct ctk_window *window,
                        unsigned char focus,
                        unsigned char clipy1,
                        unsigned char clipy2,
			unsigned char draw_borders);
   void ctk_draw_dialog(struct ctk_window *dialog);
   void ctk_draw_widget(struct ctk_widget *w,
                        unsigned char focus,
                        unsigned char clipy1,
                        unsigned char clipy2);


* Initialization *
------------------

The ctk-draw initializes itself by the function:

   void ctk_draw_init(void);

This function is supposed to get the screen ready for drawing, and may
be called at more than one time during the operation of the system.


* Screen coordinates *
----------------------

In order to work efficiently even on limited systems, CTK uses a
simple coordinate system, where the screen is addressed using
character coordinates instead of pixel coordinates. This makes it
trivial to implement the coordinate system on a text-based screen,
and significantly reduces complexity for pixel based screen systems.

The top left of the screen is (0,0) with x and y coordinates growing
downwards and to the right.

It is the responsibility of the ctk-draw module to keep track of the
screen size and must implement two functions which are used by the CTK
for querying the screen size:

   unsigned char ctk_draw_width(void);
   unsigned char ctk_draw_height(void);

The functions must return the width and the height of the ctk-draw
screen in character coordinates.


* Clearing the screen *
-----------------------

The ctk-draw is required to implement a function for clearing parts of
the screen. This function is called by the CTK before an area of the
screen is to be redrawn. The function prototype is:

   void ctk_draw_clear(unsigned char clipy1, unsigned char clipy2);

The function should clear the screen between the y coordinates
"clipy1" and "clipy2", including the line at y coordinate "clipy1",
but not the line at y coordinate "clipy2".

Note that this function may be used to draw a background image
(wallpaper) on the desktop; it does not necessarily "clear" the
screen. 


* Drawing menus *
-----------------

Drawing the menus is the responsibility of the ctk-draw, and is done
from the function:

   void ctk_draw_menus(struct ctk_menus *menus);

The ctk_draw_menus() function takes a pointer to a struct ctk_menus as
its argument and draws the menus at the top of the screen. The struct
ctk_menus is defined in the file ctk/ctk.h as:

   struct ctk_menus {
     struct ctk_menu *menus;
     struct ctk_menu *open;
     struct ctk_menu *desktopmenu;
   };

The "open" item points to the currently active menu, if any. If all
menus are closed, the "open" item is NULL. The "desktopmenu" item
points to the "Desktop" menu, and can be used for drawing the desktop
menu in a special way (such as drawing it at the rightmost
position). The "menus" item points to a linked list of all menus,
including the open menu and the desktop menu.

The struct ctk_menu is also defined in ctk/ctk.h:

   struct ctk_menu {
     struct ctk_menu *next;
     char *title;
     unsigned char titlelen;
     unsigned char nitems;
     unsigned char active;
     struct ctk_menuitem items[CTK_CONF_MAXMENUITEMS];
   };

The "next" pointer points to the next menu, or is NULL if this is the
last menu, and should be used for stepping through the menus when
drawing them on screen. The "title" is the title of the menu, and the
length of the title is given in the "titlelen" field. The "nitems"
field specifies the total number of menu items in the menu and the
"active" item specifies the active item in the menu. The active item
should be drawn differently from the other items (it usually is drawn
inverted). Finally, the list of menu items is present in the "items"
list. This list consists of struct ctk_menuitem items; the struct
ctk_menuitem is defined in the file ctk/ctk.h as:

   struct ctk_menuitem {
     char *title;
     unsigned char titlelen;
   };

Where the "title" field is the title of the menu item and the
"titlelen" the length of the title in characters.


* Drawing window background *
-----------------------------

The ctk-draw layer must implement a function for "clearing" the
window, i.e., draw the window background. This function will be called
by the CTK before a window will be completely redrawn, and looks like:

   void ctk_draw_clear_window(struct ctk_window *window,
                              unsigned char focus,
                              unsigned char clipy1, unsigned char clipy2);

The function is supposed to draw the window background, excluding
window borders as these should be drawn by the function that actually
draws the window, between "clipy1" and "clipy2".


* Drawing windows *
-------------------

The CTK will call upon the ctk-draw layer to actually draw windows
onto the screen. The ctk-draw layer is free to choose how the window
will appear on screen; with or without window borders and the style of
the borders, with or without transparent window background and how the
background shall look, etc.

The function called by the CTK for drawing a window is:

   void ctk_draw_window(struct ctk_window *window,
                        unsigned char focus,
                        unsigned char clipy1,
                        unsigned char clipy2,
			unsigned char draw_borders);

The "clipy1" and "clipy2" parameters specify the first and last + 1
lines on screen that actually should be drawn (if clipy1 = 2 and
clipy2 = 3, only line 2 should be drawn). The clip parameters are
given in screen coordinates, so line 1 is the first line below the
menus.

The focus parameter specifies if the window should be drawn in
foreground or background colors and can be either CTK_FOCUS_NONE or
CTK_FOCUS_WINDOW. Windows with a focus of CTK_FOCUS_WINDOW is usually
drawn in a brighter color than those with CTK_FOCUS_NONE.

The draw_borders parameter specifies if the window frame should be drawn.

Finally, the "window" parameter gives the actual window to be
drawn. This is specified as a struct ctk_window, which is defined in
the file ctk/ctk.h as:

   struct ctk_window {
     struct ctk_window *next, *prev;
     ek_id_t owner;
     char *title;
     unsigned char titlelen;
     struct ctk_button closebutton;
     struct ctk_button titlebutton;

     unsigned char x, y;
     unsigned char w, h;

     struct ctk_widget *inactive;
     struct ctk_widget *active;
     struct ctk_widget *focused;
   };

The first "next" and "prev" fields are pointers used by the CTK for
keeping the windows on a doubly linked list and are not used by the
ctk-draw. Likewise, the "owner" field is used by the CTK to keep track
of the process that created the window, and is not used by
ctk-draw. The "title" and "titlelen" fields are used by the CTK when
constructing the desktop menu, and should usually not be used by the
ctk-draw.

The "closebutton" and "titlebutton" fields are the CTK buttons used in
the title bar. These should not be used directly by the ctk-draw
module, as they are already present in the "active" widgets field
described below. They may be used as a comparison to give special
treatment to these two widgets however (e.g., if the close button
should be drawn at the upper left corner instead of the default upper
right corner), but may otherwise be ignored by the ctk-draw module.

The "x" and "y" fields specify the x and y coordinates of the top left
corner of the window and the "w" and "h" fields give the width and
height of the window (excluding any window borders).

Finally, the "inactive" and "active" widget pointers points to linked
lists of CTK widgets. The "focused" pointer points either to one of
the widgets in the "active" list, or is NULL if no widget is
focused. How CTK widgets are drawn is explained below.

A pseudo-code implementation of a ctk_draw_window() function might
look like this:

   ctk_draw_window(window, focus, clipy1, clipy2, draw_borders) {
      if(draw_borders) {
         draw_window_borders(window, focus, clipy1, clipy2);
      }
      foreach(widget, window->inactive) {
         draw_widget(widget, focus, clipy1, clipy2);
      }
      foreach(widget, window->active) {
         if(widget == window->focused) {
	    draw_widget(widget, focus | CTK_FOCUS_WIDGET,
	                    clipy1, clipy2);
	 } else {
	    draw_widget(widget, focus, clipy1, clipy2);
	 }
      }
   }

Where draw_window_borders() draws the window borders (also between
clipy1 and clipy2). The draw_widget() function used may the same
function as ctk_draw_widget() explained later. Notice how the clipy1
and clipy2 parameters are passed to all other functions; every
function needs to know the boundaries within which they are allowed to
draw.


* Drawing dialogs *
-------------------

In CTK, a dialog is similar to a window, with the only exception being
that they are drawn in a different style. Also, since dialogs always
are drawn on top of everything else, they do not need to be drawn
within any special boundaries.

The ctk-draw function that draws a dialog on screen is as follows:

   void ctk_draw_dialog(struct ctk_window *dialog);

It can usually be implemented together with the ctk_draw_window()
function, which is explained above.


* Drawing widgets *
-------------------

The function that draws the CTK widgets is likely to be the most
complex function in the ctk-draw module. Still, it is straightforward
to implement as it can be written in an incremental fashion, starting
with a single widget type and adding more widget types, one at a time.

The function for drawing widgets is:

   void ctk_draw_widget(struct ctk_widget *widget,
                        unsigned char focus,
                        unsigned char clipy1,
                        unsigned char clipy2);

The "clipy1" and "clipy2" parameters specify the upper and lower
bounds for the widget. The "focus" parameter specifies how the widget
is focused and usually is used to decide in what colors the widget is
to be drawn. The focus is a logical "or" combination of
CTK_FOCUS_WIDGET and either CTK_FOCUS_WINDOW, CTK_FOCUS_DIALOG or
CTK_FOCUS_NONE. A non-focused widget in a background window will have
focus == CTK_FOCUS_NONE, a focused widget in a foreground window will
have focus == CTK_FOCUS_WIDGET | CTK_FOCUS_WINDOW, and so on.

The ctk-draw module may exploit how the CTK focus constants are
defined in order to use a look-up table for the colors. The CTK focus
constants are defined in the file ctk/ctk.h as follows:

   #define CTK_FOCUS_NONE     0
   #define CTK_FOCUS_WIDGET   1
   #define CTK_FOCUS_WINDOW   2
   #define CTK_FOCUS_DIALOG   4

This gives the following table:

   0: CTK_FOCUS_NONE      (Background window, non-focused widget)
   1: CTK_FOCUS_WIDGET    (Background window, focused widget)
   2: CTK_FOCUS_WINDOW    (Foreground window, non-focused widget)
   3: CTK_FOCUS_WINDOW | CTK_FOCUS_WIDGET
                          (Foreground window, focused widget)
   4: CTK_FOCUS_DIALOG    (Dialog, non-focused widget)
   5: CTK_FOCUS_DIALOG | CTK_FOCUS_WIDGET
                          (Dialog, focused widget)

Finally, the "widget" parameter gives the actual widget that is to be
drawn. The struct ctk_widget is defined in ctk/ctk.h and looks like:

   struct ctk_widget {
     struct ctk_widget *next;
     struct ctk_window *window;
     unsigned char x, y;
     unsigned char type;
     unsigned char w;
     union {
       struct ctk_widget_label label;
       struct ctk_widget_button button;
       struct ctk_widget_hyperlink hyperlink;
       struct ctk_widget_textentry textentry;
       struct ctk_widget_icon icon;
       struct ctk_widget_bitmap bitmap;
     } widget;
   };

The "next" pointer points to the next widget in the linked list of
widgets and should be used by the ctk_draw_window() function when
stepping through the widgets. It should not be used by the
ctk_draw_widget() function, however. The "window" pointer points to
the window in which the widget is contained, and should be used to
obtain the coordinates for the window.

The "x" and "y" fields are the x and y coordinates of the widget,
relative to the x and y coordinates of the window in which the widget
is contained (the "window" pointer). The "type" field specifies what
kind of widget this is, and the "w" field has the width of the widget.

Finally, the "widget" union holds the actual widget structure. These
are described below.


* The separator widget *
------------------------

The separator widget is the simplest of all widgets, and do not need
any more information than what already is present in the struct
ctk_widget structure: it has x and y coordinates and a width.


* The label widget *
--------------------

The label widget is defined by the struct ctk_widget_label structure
(accessible from the struct ctk_widget *widget as
widget->widget.label), which is found in ctk/ctk.h:

   struct ctk_widget_label {
     char *text;
     unsigned char h;
   };

The "text" points to an array of text, and the "h" specifies the
height of the label. Each line of text in the "text" array is found at
"w" distance from each other (the "w" is found in the struct
ctk_widget).


* The button widget *
---------------------

The struct ctk_widget_button looks like:

   struct ctk_widget_button {
     char *text;
   };

Where the "text" is the text that is to be displayed on the
button. The CTK assumes that the button widget will have one character
of space to the left and right of it (this is usually where the button
borders are drawn).


* The hyperlink widget *
------------------------

The hyperlink widget is defined by the struct ctk_widget_hyperlink
structure:

   struct ctk_widget_hyperlink {
     char *text;
     char *url;
   };

The "text" pointer points to the text of the hyperlink, and the "url"
is the URL to which the hyperlink points. The ctk-draw usually will
not need to bother with the "url" field. The hyperlink widget usually
is drawn in a different color than the label widget, preferably
underlined.


* The text entry widget *
-------------------------

The text entry widget is a little more complicated to draw than the
other widgets because it has a number of state variables which
influence the way it should be drawn. The struct ctk_widget_textentry
looks like this:

   struct ctk_widget_textentry {
     char *text;
     unsigned char h;
     unsigned char len;
     unsigned char xpos, ypos;
     unsigned char state;
   };

Where "text" is the text which is to be edited, "h" is the height of
the text edit widget, "len" is the length of the line(s) that is being
edited (which may be different from the width "w" of the
widget). "xpos" and "ypos" is the position of the cursor in the text
edit widget and "state" is the state in which the widget is. The state
can be

   CTK_TEXTENTRY_NORMAL

or

   CTK_TEXTENTRY_EDIT

In the CTK_TEXTENTRY_EDIT state, the text is currenly being edited,
while in the CTK_TEXTENTRY_NORMAL, the text is not being edited. Text
entry widgets where the text is being edited should be drawn
differently than when in the normal state.


* The bitmap widget *
---------------------

The bitmap widget is different from the other CTK widgets because it
is architecture dependant; there is no standard bitmap format
specified for Contiki, but this is up to the architecture. (This means
that application programs that use the bitmap widget must be able to
draw in the architecture specific format as well.)

The struct ctk_widget_bitmap looks like:

   struct ctk_widget_bitmap {
     unsigned char *bitmap;
     unsigned char h;
   };

Where "h" is the height of the bitmap widget, and "bitmap" is a
generic pointer that points to an architecture specific
repressentation of the bitmap.

* The icon widget *
-------------------

The icon widget is similar to the bitmap widget in that it uses an
architecture specific bitmap format for the repressentation of the
graphical icon. It also includes a text version of the icon. XXX: the
icon widget format is likely to change in the near future!

The struct ctk_widget_icon is defined as:

   struct ctk_widget_icon {
     char *title;
     ek_id_t owner;
     unsigned char *bitmap;
     char *textmap;
   };

The "title" field is the name of the icon, and should be drawn below
the icon picture. The "owner" is the process that created the icon,
and should normally be ignored by the ctk-draw. The "bitmap" is a
pointer to an architecture specific repressentation of the icon; the
same on-screen drawing function can be used for this bitmap as for the
bitmap widget. Finally, the "textmap" is a text based icon.

Currently, icons are 24x24 pixels large (the text based versions are
3x3 characters).