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Re: Fileselector Gadget



--> Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 11:19:33 -0500
--> From: John Aspinall <jga@harlequin.com>
--> Subject: Fileselector Gadget
--> 
-->    Date: Wed, 16 Mar 94 16:05:58 +0100
-->    From: Frank Buhr <buhr@ki6.informatik.uni-hamburg.de>
--> 
-->    Has anyone written a Mac-like fileselector gadget?
--> 
-->    I would like to do this:
--> 
-->    ;...
-->      (accept 'pathname
--> 	     :view  +gadget-dialog-view+)
--> 
-->    ... and a nice fileselector appears ...wishful thinking?
--> 
--> You may wish to call SELECT-FILE.
--> 
--> SELECT-FILE is a method on the application frame (so you can
--> specialize it).  The default method calls FRAME-MANAGER-SELECT-FILE.
--> Depending upon your platform, FRAME-MANAGER-SELECT-FILE may pop up a
--> window-system-specific file-selector.  In the LispWorks Beta CLIM 2,
--> it does call just such a file-selector.

in Allegro Clim 2, you get the Motif file-selector widget.  it isn't
exactly the Mac file-selector, which I find occasionally bothersome, but
it does pretty well.  I'm using in my apps, as I find any other
mechanism (like typing in a pathname and hoping it's OK) is just plain
lousy.

I think that with clever use of Motif color resources, you could make
the thing look pretty nice, too. I haven't tried that yet.

speaking of Motif resources, there's this brand-new book on this topic
which is fabulous! quite an eye-opener for me at least, with gobs of
detail about what and how. it's called 

"The Shell Hacker's Guide to X and Motif" by Alan Southerton. $35

who lives somewhere around Boston, apparently.  the examples are largely
DEC Alpha screen-dumps, but the code stuff is all things I recognize
stylistically from my SUN Unix files.  there's a book-matching program
which will do enormous customizations for you, interactively, that I
don't yet have (didn't come with my copy).

 -- clint


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