On Mon, 27 Mar 2017 13:01:23 +1030 Simon Lees <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 03/24/2017 08:00 AM, Roman Hargrave wrote: > > > > First off, I do hope this is the correct mailing list seeing as it's > > the > > one cited as being for general inquiries on freedesktop.org. > > > > Having got that out of the way, I was curious as to whether there had been > > any > > discussion on a manner of general-purpose interface for file selector > > dialogs, > > as they are one of the more frequently interacted-with non-control aspects > > of > > the toolkits (GTK2/3, Qt, Wx, Enlightenment, etc..) in use today in building > > applications and desktop environments on Linux. > > > > This question first came to mind when GTK3 replaced the type-ahead feature > > with > > a recursive search, at which point it became apparent to me that I would > > not > > like to have to interact with that particular file chooser anymore. > > > > Unfortunately, due to the nature of file choosers and their toolkits, the > > user > > is at the mercy of the toolkit developer, and GTK has decided that any > > ability > > to change this behavior shall not be considered for inclusion. > > Also, unfortunately, many very useful applications using these toolkits > > really > > have no alternative (Gimp, Inkscape), and working on an alternative would be > > counterproductive, to boot. > > > > Currently, some applications use DESKTOP_SESSION as a way to determine > > which > > utilities and IPC facilities, etc, to interact with. Currently, the burden > > of > > selecting the "correct" toolkit features is upon the application, and I > > have > > encountered at least one application that seems to switch between the Qt or > > GTK file picker based on the environment it runs in, so there is that. > > > > Now, if there were a toolkit-agnostic set of interfaces for applications > > to call in to in order to prompt the user with the native file picker > > instead of that which the toolkits use would have the advantage of insuring > > that any settings applied by their desktop environment follow through to the > > application experience, thus allowing users to, for instance, not be > > subjected > > to, for instance GTK file picker if they would prefer to use the Qt picker. > > > > It would also allow for users to more efficiently use applications which > > have > > an anemic file chooser by way of their toolkit (some older versions, i > > think, of > > fltk just present a listbox of files in PWD) - provided that the application > > uses the interface rather than calling directly in to the toolkit. > > > > I would be interesting in writing an RFP if one does not already exist for > > such > > a thing, but was also primarily interested in fielding interest, as I know > > that > > there would probably be interest in being able to use a "better" (in some > > folks > > opinion) picker than say, the GTK picker, given what I've read in the rather > > heated discussions on the GTK and Gnome bugzilla. > > > > I don't intend to attract ire from more seasoned XDG/Freedesktop folks, as > > I know > > Freedesktop isn't exactly a standards org, but it does seem like the most > > appropriate > > venue, to me at least. > > > > Feel free to point me elsewhere if you know of a better group for this. > > > > There is a xdg-file-dialog, to go with xdg-terminal and friends but it > seems to only support kde and zenity (gtk?) this seems close enough to > what your looking for it would just be a matter of getting toolkits to > use it rather then there own built in. Although you would probably want > to extend some other areas as well for example there's currently no > sensible option for enlightenment or lxqt. > > -- > > Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net > > Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek > SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 > GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B > xdg-file-dialog is the idea here, but it doesn't offer a native solution, which I think would be more appreciated by some developers. When I get some time I'll write a quick C example, provided I don't get distracted. -- Roman Hargrave http://hargrave.info [email protected] $ fortune -s linuxcookie linux cookie Imitation is the sincerest form of plagiarism. _______________________________________________ xdg mailing list [email protected] https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
