Re: Interpretation of extensions different from Unix/Linux?

["Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

On Wed, 19 Aug 2009 12:32:04 +0200, Georg Bauhaus wrote:

> Dmitry A. Kazakov schrieb:
>> On Tue, 18 Aug 2009 15:37:39 -0500, Randy Brukardt wrote: 
> 
>>>  Any "proper" Windows program will use the 
>>> built-in file browser, not create some less-powerful version on their own.
>> 
>> No. First there are two (maybe three) of them under Windows. Both
>> (especially the newer one) are quite unusable. The older was extensible so
>> that you could add buttons and other stuff *required* by a "proper"
>> applications like mine. (:-)) Under Linux the situation is much worse than
>> that. So I have my own set of file selection widgets, BTW, docked widgets,
>> not dialog boxes.
> 
> The File dialogue mess could have been addressed by getting rid
> of stupid File dialogues in the first place: Instead, drag
> a file from a GUI onto your program (or have a GUI folder appear
> in your program and drag from there.)

I just show a tree directory view and a file view panes on a docked panel.
The user clicks a file and it appears in an external edit box. This kind of
interface requires communication between file browser and other widgets.

> Some OS/2 programs such as editors even had a title bar
> icon for dragging the file to some destination folder
> of choice. This would work in the opposite direction, then.

Sun's Open Look under Solaris used this concept too (before OS/2?).

But I dislike d'n'd, it is not very handy on a desktop PC, but in the times
of notebooks, I doubt anybody would miss it.

Modern interfaces are kind of "OO".  Older interfaces, like d'n'd, were
"functional": you had a function first (the text editor window open) and
then you chose arguments for it, by dropping objects into it. "OO" GUI
first selects an object. Only then the you choose the operation, like
"open" in the popup menu. That opens a corresponding application, which is
not necessarily a text editor. There are too many applications and their
functional parts in these days to have all them active and visible on the
desktop.

> A generalized user call back of sorts.
> 
> However, using a GUI's facilities would mean five minutes of
> learning a GUI concept new to some...  Shudder.

I am using the look and feel of Windows file browser,

   http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de/ada/gtkada_contributions.htm#2.9

Everybody knows what it is, genetically imprinted.... (:-))

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de