When are toolkit file dialogs used?

When are toolkit file dialogs used?

[Richard Stallman]

In man/files.texi I am rewriting

  When Emacs is built with a suitable GUI toolkit, it pops up the
standard File Selection dialog of that toolkit instead of prompting for
the file name in the minibuffer.  On Unix and GNU/Linux platforms, Emacs
does that when built with LessTif and Motif toolkits; on MS-Windows, the
GUI version does that by default.

as follows:

  When Emacs is built with a suitable GUI toolkit, commands invoked
with the mouse use standard File Selection dialog of that toolkit
instead of prompting for the file name in the minibuffer.  On Unix and
GNU/Linux platforms, Emacs does that when built with GTK, LessTif, and
Motif toolkits; on MS-Windows, the GUI version does that by default.


However, is that correct nowadays?  Or is more changed needed?

Re: When are toolkit file dialogs used?

[Lennart Borgman]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Richard Stallman" <rms@gnu.org>


>   When Emacs is built with a suitable GUI toolkit, commands invoked
> with the mouse use standard File Selection dialog of that toolkit
> instead of prompting for the file name in the minibuffer.  On Unix and
> GNU/Linux platforms, Emacs does that when built with GTK, LessTif, and
> Motif toolkits; on MS-Windows, the GUI version does that by default.
>
>
> However, is that correct nowadays?  Or is more changed needed?

Not quite on MS Windows. It seems to use the GUI version when for example
New File is choosen from the menus, regardless of whether the keyboard or
mouse is used. If instead C-x C-f is used then Emacs prompts in the
minibuffer.

I can not either get the GUI version of Open Directory to work. There is no
way that I can find out to actually choose a directory. It is also not the
standard GUI for choosing a directory on MS Windows. (I think it should use
SHBrowseForFolder.)

Re: When are toolkit file dialogs used?

[Jason Rumney]

Lennart Borgman wrote:

>I can not either get the GUI version of Open Directory to work. There is no
>way that I can find out to actually choose a directory.
>
What about pressing "Open" without selecting anything?

> It is also not the
>standard GUI for choosing a directory on MS Windows. (I think it should use
>SHBrowseForFolder.)
>  
>
SHBrowseForFolder involves unecessary COM/OLE library calls, and is not 
available on Windows 9x/ME.

Re: When are toolkit file dialogs used?

[Lennart Borgman]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jason Rumney" <jasonr@gnu.org>

> What about pressing "Open" without selecting anything?

It does not work for me - and if it did it would not that be very confusing?


> SHBrowseForFolder involves unecessary COM/OLE library calls, and is not
> available on Windows 9x/ME.

The documentation says "Minimum operating systems Windows NT 4.0, Windows
95". Could it be some early issue that it was not available on 9x?

Do you mean that the overhead is too heavy? I never noticed that on my old
pc. I would expect the heavy calls (to the OS to be about the same), but I
do not know this at all. Can you explain?

Re: When are toolkit file dialogs used?

[Jan D.]

> In man/files.texi I am rewriting
>
>   When Emacs is built with a suitable GUI toolkit, it pops up the
> standard File Selection dialog of that toolkit instead of prompting for
> the file name in the minibuffer.  On Unix and GNU/Linux platforms, 
> Emacs
> does that when built with LessTif and Motif toolkits; on MS-Windows, 
> the
> GUI version does that by default.
>
> as follows:
>
>   When Emacs is built with a suitable GUI toolkit, commands invoked
> with the mouse use standard File Selection dialog of that toolkit
> instead of prompting for the file name in the minibuffer.  On Unix and
> GNU/Linux platforms, Emacs does that when built with GTK, LessTif, and
> Motif toolkits; on MS-Windows, the GUI version does that by default.
>
>
> However, is that correct nowadays?  Or is more changed needed?

I don't know if this is the appropriate place, but the variable 
use-file-dialog also controls if a file dialog is used (the variable is 
new in 21.4).  use-file-dialog is documented in frames.texi so maybe it 
is redundant to mention it in files.texi also.

C-h v use-file-dialog

*Non-nil means mouse commands use a file dialog to ask for files.
This applies to commands from menus and tool bar buttons.  The value of
`use-dialog-box' takes precedence over this variable, so a file dialog 
is only
used if both `use-dialog-box' and this variable are non-nil.

	Jan D.

Re: When are toolkit file dialogs used?

[chad brown]

Under Mac OS X, with the carbon support enabled, the file selection 
dialogs are used if prompted by the toolbar, but not from, for example, 
C-x C-f.  I do not use the toolbar normally, and I have not seen the 
file selection dialog before now, so I assume it follows the same 
use-file-dialog methods as other gui toolkits.

*chad


>> In man/files.texi I am rewriting
>>
>>   When Emacs is built with a suitable GUI toolkit, it pops up the
>> standard File Selection dialog of that toolkit instead of prompting 
>> for
>> the file name in the minibuffer.  On Unix and GNU/Linux platforms, 
>> Emacs
>> does that when built with LessTif and Motif toolkits; on MS-Windows, 
>> the
>> GUI version does that by default.
>>
>> as follows:
>>
>>   When Emacs is built with a suitable GUI toolkit, commands invoked
>> with the mouse use standard File Selection dialog of that toolkit
>> instead of prompting for the file name in the minibuffer.  On Unix and
>> GNU/Linux platforms, Emacs does that when built with GTK, LessTif, and
>> Motif toolkits; on MS-Windows, the GUI version does that by default.
>>
>>
>> However, is that correct nowadays?  Or is more changed needed?

Re: When are toolkit file dialogs used?

[YAMAMOTO Mitsuharu]

>>>>> On Tue, 01 Feb 2005 08:30:25 -0500, Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> said:

> However, is that correct nowadays?  Or is more changed needed?

As for Mac OS 9, file dialogs cannot be used at the moment.  But I'm
now enabling Carbon API support on Mac OS 9, where one can use dialogs
as in the Mac OS X/Carbon version.  The code is ready, but "make"
stuff is not yet.

				     YAMAMOTO Mitsuharu
				mituharu@math.s.chiba-u.ac.jp

Re: When are toolkit file dialogs used?

[Richard Stallman]

    > However, is that correct nowadays?  Or is more changed needed?

    As for Mac OS 9, file dialogs cannot be used at the moment.

It is not worth discussing MacOS in that part of the manual.
Especially not old versions of Mac OS.  Especially not bugs
that people will soon fix.