From miguel@nuclecu.unam.mx
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Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1998 17:36:47 -0500
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From: Miguel de Icaza <miguel@nuclecu.unam.mx>
To: gnome-list@gnome.org
Subject: GNOME and the File selection dialog box
Hello dear GNOMErs,
The GNOME project needs a decenct default dialog box for file
saving and loading. The file selector widget in Gtk sadly is not what
we need for various reasons:
- It lacks internationalization support.
- It lacks gnome-stock support.
- It lacks gnome-entry support (ie, history of previously
selected files)
- It lacks metadata support (details in a second).
So we need to write a gnome file selector that has at least the
above features, but I would like very much to add some extra things
that I have noticed we need. I have listed some of the needs I think
we need, and I would appreciate if people could tell me which other
features they would like to see in the GNOME file selector or what
things about look and feel are important in the GNOME file selector.
- Optionally let the programmer provide a number of recognized
file types to load. Probably just a list of extensions that
the program recognizes.
Stuff like: ("All files", "*"), ("Lotus 1-2-3 files", "*.wk1")
and so on.
- Provide a way for the programmer to specify an
auto-type-select- upon-user-selecting-file feature. By default
we could provide a callback that would do regexp matching on
the file, if the user clicks on a file with a ".jpg" extension,
we would auto-select "JPEG file (*.jpg)" on the file type
region.
- Provide a way to make it extensible: Programmers should be able
to extend an existing file selection dialog box with stuff like
minimized previews of the data content (by packing/appending
further widgets to the file selection).
- Metadata support: Tom Tromey's metadata support would be very
handy in this situation, we could lookup the key
"Quick/MiniIcon" for every file displayed on the file selector
and provide an icon next to the file when displaying.
- We need to support the features founds on the Gtk file
selector: completion and file operations.
Best wishes,
Miguel.
From rhpennin@midway.uchicago.edu
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Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1998 14:01:36 -0500 (CDT)
From: Havoc Pennington <rhpennin@midway.uchicago.edu>
Sender: rhpennin@midway.uchicago.edu
To: Miguel de Icaza <miguel@nuclecu.unam.mx>
cc: gnome-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: GNOME and the File selection dialog box
In-Reply-To: <199808292236.RAA04721@erandi.nuclecu.unam.mx>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.3.95.980830135447.22703B-100000@harper.uchicago.edu>
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On Sat, 29 Aug 1998, Miguel de Icaza wrote:
>
> - Optionally let the programmer provide a number of recognized
> file types to load. Probably just a list of extensions that
> the program recognizes.
>
Why not take a cue from Scheme and let the programmer pass in a filter
function?
typedef gboolean (*GnomeFileFilter) (const gchar*);
Then provide a default that checks against a regexp.
> - Provide a way for the programmer to specify an
> auto-type-select- upon-user-selecting-file feature. By default
> we could provide a callback that would do regexp matching on
> the file, if the user clicks on a file with a ".jpg" extension,
> we would auto-select "JPEG file (*.jpg)" on the file type
> region.
>
Here you could have a "file_selected" signal that takes the filename as
arg... then the programmer could update the preview, set the file type
menu, etc. in a callback.
Sounds cool.
Havoc
From miguel@nuclecu.unam.mx
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Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1998 15:26:23 -0500
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From: Miguel de Icaza <miguel@nuclecu.unam.mx>
To: rhpennin@midway.uchicago.edu
CC: gnome-list@gnome.org
In-reply-to: <Pine.GSO.3.95.980830135447.22703B-100000@harper.uchicago.edu>
(message from Havoc Pennington on Sun, 30 Aug 1998 14:01:36 -0500
(CDT))
Subject: Re: GNOME and the File selection dialog box
X-Windows: More than enough rope.
> Why not take a cue from Scheme and let the programmer pass in a filter
> function?
>
> typedef gboolean (*GnomeFileFilter) (const gchar*);
>
> Then provide a default that checks against a regexp.
That was exactly my implementation plan. I should have mentioned that.
Miguel.