[Haskell-beginners] Event handling in GTK2hs: managing events and global state

[Александър Л. Димитров]

Also Sprach Brandon S. Allbery KF8NH:
> You can make it "global" without using unsafePerformIO:  Set up a  
> ReaderT MyState IO and run the program inside it, after initializing  
> your MyState with appropriate IORefs.  You need to lift gtk2hs  
> functions, and callbacks have to be wrapped to push them back up into  
> the ReaderT:
>
>     curState <- ask
>     lift $ widget `on` buttonPressEvent $ runReaderT curState .  
> myCallback
>
> The reason you want a ReaderT instead of a StateT is that any state not 
> accessed via an IORef can't be propagated between the mainline code and 
> callbacks, so you want something that is forced to be read-only after 
> initialization except via an IORef stored within it.
>
> Aside:  I've suggested at times that gtk2hs use class MonadIO instead of 
> type IO, which would make explicit lifting (and I think "dropping")  
> unnecessary.  I never made a formal enhancement suggestion though; I  
> should do so.

Thanks for your very helpful answer :-) I ended up passing a state object around
in functions and then porting it back to use the Monad (damn deadlines, always
in the way of sound programming.)

If the GTK2hs people made this a bit easier, it would surely help. I'll look
into the possibilities myself, too.

Thanks again,
Aleks
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