#1585 Tk_getOpenFile in Aqua requires that initialfile exists

[Anonymous]

Tcl/Tk 8.4.4 Aqua for MacOS X (rel. 10.2.8) requires
that a file specified as initial file exist.

Example:

set FileName [tk_getOpenFile -initialfile example.txt]

If the file example does not exists, tk_getOpenFile aborts
with the message

bad initialfile "example.txt" file does not exist.

On other platforms incl. fink the initial file name is
listed by the widget. The Aqua widget has no room
for this and a suitable behaviour could be just to
ignore the initialfile name if the file does not exist.

Furthermore, file types are ignored. Thus even

set FileName [tk_getOpenFile -filetypes {
{{Text Files} {.txt}}
}]

is specified, all files in the directory are listed.

Peter Balling
pballing@asc-consult.com

[Jim Ingham]

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Sorry, but I don't see the point of listing a non-existant file name
in an Open dialog. There is no place to list this in the Aqua widget
because the Nav Services dialog for opening files doesn't have a
place to list it. But again, what would be the point? If it doesn't
exist, you aren't going to be able to open it anyway...

The part about file types is a separate bug. Don't put two bugs in
one report, it makes tracking bugs harder. But you don't need to
report the filetypes failure, there is a bug about this already. The
NavServices started passing FSRef's to the filter proc rather than
FSSpec's in 10.2, and I need to rev the filter proc to handle both
structures...

[Peter Balling]

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The reason for having a non-existing file in the open dialog may
be to have it act as either a template to change interactively or
start as a pattern to start a search.

The Tcl/Tk man pages allow -initialfile both for Tk_getOpenFile
and Tk_getSaveFile and do not state that the file must exist. This
is allowed on other platforms. It should be allow for Aqua as well
for compatibility and simply ignored, not crashing the open dialog.

pballing@asc-consult.com

[Donal K. Fellows]

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The general model is that [tk_getOpenFile] is for getting
the name of an existing file to open, and [tk_getSaveFile]
is for getting the name of a file (possibly existing,
possibly not) to save the current program state (in some
sense, hopefully obvious!) as. Opening something based on a
template is a different way of working that lies outside the
scope of those commands (and that's expected to be the case
on all platforms.)

[Peter Balling]

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But the open dialog should not crash. I had
to rewrite my application setting -initalfile names
for non existing files to "" for Tk_getOpenFile in
Aqua. This was complicated
by the fact that tcl_platform does not seem to
distinguish between Aqua Tcl/Tk and Fink Tcl/Tk
where the problem does not exist.

[Vince Darley]

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Obviously it shouldn't crash, but according to your original
report, it doesn't crash -- it just throws a nice helpful
Tcl error message.

To distinguish between Fink and Aqua, use 'tk windowingsystem'.

[Peter Balling]

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Thanks for the info on 'tk windowing system'.

I wrote that that tk_getOpenFile aborted (and it
left me being unable to open any file before the'application was
changed. It did not crash Tcl/Tk or the application).