Hi XFormers,
I have just started to play with 0.85 version. (I have a running
telescope control software using 0.81 so I needed to wait a bit for all
major bugs to be fixed ;-)
Following are my remarks resulting from a very superficial look:
1. File selector.
It is very nice to have the feature (which I voted for some time ago) of
automatic scrolling the file list to show the selected item. Thanks, TC!
Well, there is one thing here that maybe could be done better. As it is
now, if one passes as default selection the pointer got from the
previous invocation of file selector (i.e. full path name), it does not
get recognized. So one has to manually find the last '/' in the name,
get rid of the path prefix and pass it as the default selection. And using
fl_get_filename() may not be a proper solution, if you enter a relative
or absolute path containing '/' into the "File To Load" field.
Second thing is the 'Rescan' button. If one disables the file selector
cache (fl_disable_fselector_cache(TRUE)), the Rescan button disappears
completely. BTW, it is not mentioned in the manual if I have read it
carefully enough. Actually it was so also in 0.81 but, funny to say, I
have noticed it only now. This is IMHO not a desirable behaviour, as one
can easy imagine a situation (Unix is a multiuser, multitasking OS,
isn't it?) when a new file (or files) appears in the directory while the
file selector window is already opened. So I think the Rescan button
should be there always.
2. Browser
There are two really nice features -- scrolling line-by-line with middle
or right button and fl_addto_browser_chars(). I needed the latter in my
code so I had to get a line, strcat to the contents and then replace it.
Unfortunately, at least in Solaris version (got from einstein....
yesterday), a browser still does not display anything until there are
enough lines in it that the vertical scrollbar appears. I thought maybe
forcing the scrollbar to ON with fl_set_browser_vscrollbar will do, but
it did not ;-(
3. Fdesign
I am not sure if the change to allow left mouse button move and resize
objects makes things easier. Now if I want to create more than one
button, I need to click every time in the Object Classes window. Or
clone existing object together with all its settings which is not always
desirable. Maybe it could be done so the object class (and therefore
also 'object adding mode') could be 'locked', e.g. by double-clicking.
Then the left button would work as before (adding objects) until one
'unlocks' the object class by single-clicking in the class browser.
I was hoping that the new fdesign would allow changing the 'sub-class'
of an object. I mean the buttons mainly. Many times I found myself
changing some button (with carefully designed size, fonts, name, label,
callback and so on, of course) from ordinary button to, say, lightbutton.
If you don't want to design it from scratch, the only way is to manually
edit .fd file which can be potentially dangerous. Or maybe there is a
smarter way that I don't know? I think it could be done easy inside the
fdesign.
4. General.
The BOLD_ITALIC font was nicer in previous versions, at least (IMHO)
on Solaris 2.5.1 using its native OpenWindows font set.
with best regards,
*xforming*, Michal.
****************************************************************************
Michal Szymanski Internet: msz@sirius.astrouw.edu.pl
Warsaw University Observatory Bitnet: msz@plwauw61.bitnet
Al. Ujazdowskie 4 Voice: 48-22-6294011 ext 23
00-478 Warszawa, POLAND FAX: 48-22-6294967
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