Re: [Java-gnome-developer] Problems with FileChooserWidget

[Andrew C. <an...@op...>]

Hi Igor,

On Fri, 2005-03-06 at 15:22 -0400, Igor Foox wrote:
> [GtkFileChooser]

A few nights ago at GUADEC I was working with Ben Konrath (scsibear) on
a similar problem. I'm no expert, but I do have working FileChooser code
to tell you about. 

> Does anyone have any idea on what might be causing this, or better yet,
> a solution?

I think at least part of the problem is that Dialogs tend to be treated
a bit specially - both by the underlying GTK libraries and up at our
level in java-gnome land.

I found that the API was a bit fragile. You'd think that you could just
new FileChooser() and be happy, but for various reasons that seems to
work sub-optimally, if at all. [sub-optimally includes it not
remembering where you were if you'd previously navigated the chooser]

Of about five different reasonable seeming combinations I tried, the
only way I could get FileChooser to behave was to add a FileChooser
dialog to my .glade file. [Some people seem to find this natural, but
until now I've only ever had one Window per glade file. I kinda stumbled
across doing it this way by accidentally hitting the wrong button in
Glade. Gotta love it]. Then, in my code, I wrote bits to get a reference
to that dialog, and then handled run()ing it and then parse the weirdo
int return code (seems to be from the API that comes from the parent
Dialog class).

Anything else just plain didn't work right.

If you want to see an example, try grabbing the code to xseq[1] and
seeing if that works for you - right off the bat there's a file
selection dialog you can try. If that all works, then you know that your
java-gnome installation is ok.

If xseq won't run, then upgrade to >=libgtk-java 2.6.2 and
>=libglade-java 2.10.1, and try again.

AfC
Stuttgart

P.S. First time we've seen you on this list, so a very warm welcome to
you.

[1] xseq:

yes, in just about every email I send to this list I'm going to refer
people to my code. Why? Becuase our JavaDoc is terrible, our examples
tend to be simplistic or contribed, and our API itself tends to be a bit
fragile (largely because there are several ways you *could* use
something, but only generally one way you *should* use something).

Figuring out workable code paths was *very* challenging - and I'm not
exactly an amateur - but once you've got a working model, you can
generally replicate it and be golden. Since I *have* a working instance
of many of the java-gnome peices now (TreeView, TextView, FileChooser,
LibGlade of course, Pixbuf/Image loading, Listener/Event patterns, etc)
it would be kind of foolish for me NOT to point people at that code, at
least as a starting point for them to try and get ideas.

Anyway, for some FileChooser code, see
http://research.operationaldynamics.com/darcs/xseq/tests/xseq/ui/TestLoadWindow.java
in particular around line 143 for dealing with the int response code,
and also note the byplay between showAll()+present(), run() and hide().

To see it in action, see screen shots at:
http://research.operationaldynamics.com/projects/xseq/wiki/ScreenShots

AfC
Stuttgart

-- 
Andrew Frederick Cowie

Technology strategy, managing change, establishing procedures,
and executing successful upgrades to mission critical business
infrastructure.

http://www.operationaldynamics.com/

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