New on the FatElk repo

[clasqm]

OK, report back. I did this as an exercise to rewrite my 150-line yab program Tiny Tim. It's a quick and dirty attempt, just to gain some experience with Yoshi.

tiniertim.yoshi

Code:

#set up the window
*.title = TinierTim
*.x = 200
*.y = 200

#Text
txt.type = text
txt.default = Please enter a long URL to send to TinyURL.com[return](You can paste it in with a right-click).
txt.lines = 3

#textfield
tx.type = textfield
tx.label = URL:
tx.mandatory = true
tx.align = left
tx.width = 500
#if your url is more than 500 characters I can't help you ...

#add cancel button
cb.type = cancelbutton
cb.label = Cancel

#change defaultbutton
db.type = defaultbutton
db.label = Submit

tinertim.sh

Code:

#!/bin/env sh

## who am i? ##
_script="$(readlink -f ${BASH_SOURCE[0]})"
_base="$(dirname $_script)"
cd $_base

tmpfile=`finddir B_COMMON_TEMP_DIRECTORY`/tiniertim.out
yoshi ./tiniertim.yoshi>$tmpfile
#we only need the first line for this one so no need for   while IFS ...
read response < $tmpfile

if test $response = "cancel=1"; then echo "Exiting";exit 1; fi

url=`echo $response|cut -d = -f 2`
shorturl=`curl http://tinyurl.com/api-create.php?url=$url`

#requires the clipboard utility, available on my repo
#put this in the requires section of the .PackageInfo
clipboard --copy=$shorturl
alert --info "The shortened URL $shorturl has been put in your clipboard"
rm -f $tmpfile

48 lines vs 150. This does not do everything TinyTim does. For example, monitoring the clipboard and error-checking that input really is a URL. Can be done, but string splitting in bash is just too painful for a Wednesday night ;-) In any case, that would make the difference smaller.

But what interest me more than just the line count is that the UI has been split off from the code. I could decide tomorrow that my app would be better if written in python, perl or even yab (!) and do that. The user would never even know. I can see myself developing a whole collection of standard yoshi scripts for things like installation wizards. No one is ever going to write an office suite in Yoshi, but for developing quick front-ends to CLI commands, this is fantastic.

Respect, Jim. I think this is a VIP (Very Important Program). I hope you'll accept input on this thread mainly as showing what problems a Yoshi newbie encounters and consider how that could affect the documentation.

No, scratch that. I think Yoshi deserves its own Forum section.