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000138_icon-group-sender _Mon Jul 20 08:13:34 1998.msg
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Date: Sun, 19 Jul 1998 21:16:59 -0500
Message-Id: <199807200216.VAA31067@segfault.cs.utsa.edu>
From: Clinton Jeffery <jeffery@segfault.cs.utsa.edu>
To: frank.sergeant@pobox.com
Cc: icon-group@baskerville.CS.Arizona.EDU
In-Reply-To: <sU6r1Yv1u83e084yn@eskimo.com> (pygmy@eskimo.com)
Subject: Re: using Icon for database application
Reply-To: jeffery@cs.utsa.edu
Errors-To: icon-group-errors@optima.CS.Arizona.EDU
Status: RO
Content-Length: 3705
> Frank Sergeant wrote:
> I tried the TextDialog()...
> Unfortunately, the tab key only moves among the 4 text
> fields and never gets to the buttons. Is there a way
> to add the buttons to the tab list?
This is a good question! TextDialog's author(s) can answer it better
than I could.
> the editing in the text fields was not at all what a Windows user
> would expect (home, end, high-lighted replacement, etc
> did not seem to work at all).
Well, it is not native to Windows and was not written what that in mind.
It would be possible to enhance the text vidgets to support more special
keys, but no one is working on it that I know of.
> Anyway, for my database project, I might not want to build the screens
> with VIB. I think I would prefer to build them procedurally.
You could certainly write a program to translate clipper codes into IPL
calls to create the appropriate vidgets directly. We have also had
success here in dynamically constructing VIB-compatible lists of strings
in order to produce interfaces that are customized at runtime. To do this
we started with a VIB interface and then added parameters to the VIB-generated
code that are inserted into the list of interface component strings.
> I tried WinEditRegion() but didn't fully understand...
> I didn't see how to get out of it or how to make
> it into a single line edit field (or even a fixed multi
> line edit field)
The facility is at present very simple and very general purpose. It was not
intended to replace single-line text input vidgets. To use WinEditRegion
you define a rectangle area on the screen in which the user can edit
multiple lines of text. The program views the result as one big string.
You can't "get out of it"; if it is part of a temporary interaction you can
put it in a dialog, in its own temporary window, or resize it to be
0 pixels in size.
> I couldn't see exactly how to tie it into the rest of the program.
There is, deviously, no event produced during editing and no changes to the
program's control flow as a result of editing; the user just changes the
contents of the region when they feel like it. You can check a flag to tell
if a region is modified, and you read the contents of the region (a string)
via a single call to WinEditRegion(). A typical application might do this,
for example, in response to a Save... menu option. The program wi.icn is
an example.
> Are there other native Windows widgets? Especially,
> a single line edit field?
One could be added. This is the first request I've had for it.
All the native facilities presently supported are described in the
Windows Icon technical report. This fall I should get an opportunity
to look at what else might be added from Windows' core API.
> I gathered from some other postings that the Unix version has a socket
> interface and also a general mechanism for calling arbitrary external
> (e.g. C) routines but that the Windows version does not. (?)
This is correct.
> Have I overlooked a way already built into Windows Icon
> to call an external routine?
No, there is no external interface at present. I would love it if someone
would implement loadfunc() for Windows. I've had 2-3 rumors of projects
that might include such an effort, but nothing concrete. My own plans
include porting most or all of Unicon to Windows (Unicon's easy network
facilities should be reasonably easy to port), but I have no immediate
plans to work on an external interface until a student volunteers to help
do it.
Clint Jeffery, jeffery@cs.utsa.edu
Division of Computer Science, The University of Texas at San Antonio
Research http://www.cs.utsa.edu/research/plss.html