request-date in a rebol2 vid application - rebol

Question

Can someone tell me why the following code is not working? It is supposed to set the date in a field when it loads, then allow the date to be changed by clicking on the field. I'm using rebol/view 2.7.8 on linux. Actually, I think this code used to work years ago when I was using MS Windows, but not under linux for some reason.
drl
rebol []
trace true
out: layout [
style dater txt bold right [trans-date/date: copy (form now/date)] 48x24
dater "T-Date:" trans-date: field 80x24 (form now/date) feel [
engage: func [face action event][
if action = 'up [
lv-dat: request-date/date/offset (now/date) 450x375
if lv-dat <> none [
trans-date/text: form lv-dat
show trans-date
]
]
]
show trans-date
]
]
view out

Answer 1

Here is a cleaned up version of your code:
Rebol []
out: layout compose/deep [
style dater txt bold right 48x24
dater "T-Date:"
trans-date: field 80x24 (form now/date) feel [
engage: func [face action event][
if action = 'up [
lv-dat: request-date/date/offset (now/date) 450x375
if lv-dat [
face/text: form lv-dat
show face
]
]
]
]
]
view out
The main issue was the missing compose/deep call to evaluate the paren expressions before layout is called. However, that approach is not the usual way to initialize face properties, you should rather put init code in a do section of the VID block, like this:
Rebol []
out: layout [
style dater txt bold right 48x24
dater "T-Date:"
trans-date: field 80x24 feel [
engage: func [face action event][
if action = 'up [
lv-dat: request-date/date/offset now/date 450x375
if lv-dat [
face/text: form lv-dat
show face
]
]
]
]
do [trans-date/text: form now/date]
]
view out
Hope this helps.