[GUI] ANNOUNCE: Specification for abstract user interface for Windows, GNOME and Aqua

[Krasimir Angelov]

   Hello Wolfgang!

First of all thanks for your constructive criticism.

--- Wolfgang Thaller <wolfgang.thaller@gmx.net> wrote:

> Do Win32 and GNOME users expect the main dialog
> window to have a menu 
> bar with the standard commands (About, Quit, Edit
> commands), and 
> nothing else? Mac users certainly do, but I've seen
> many small Windows 
> & Unix utility apps display just a dialog without
> any menus.

Not obligatory. Maybe this should be optional.
> And now about Krasimir's document:
[..]
> *) Open Dialogs on Mac OS allow multiple selection
> (so you can open 
> several files at once).

For that reason in HToolkit there are two functions:
runInputFileDialog and runInputFilesDialog. The first
allows selection of just one file while the second
allows selection of multiple files. Allowing multiple
selection in the File/Open option should be useful for
both Win32 and GNOME ports.

> *) Mac application have to specify the document
> types they support 
> (together with their associated ic ons, extensions
> and traditional Mac 
> OS file type codes), in a separate "property list"
> file that is 
> included within the application package. It cannot
> be specified at 
> runtime because it has to be available before the
> application is ever 
> run.

Where I can read more about the content of the
"property list" file?

> *) Apart from the use of file extensions, Mac OS
> also supports 
> four-character type codes ("HFS file types"). 

For that reason GNOME uses "mime types". In my
proposal the mime type is accessible from dtMimeType
field in the DocumentTemplate record. One solution is
to add dtContentType field which will contain HFS file
type. 

> *) Opening files via drag&drop:
> In order to open a file on the mac, you drag it to
> the Application's 
> icon, not to one of it's window. Dragging something
> to a window means: 
> insert it _into_ that document (if possible), not
> open a new document. 
> Whether or not it is possible to drag a particular
> file to the 
> application icon is determined by the list of
> supported document types 
> that I mentioned earlier.

The same situation is when the Windows user double
click a file from the Explorer. The association
between the file type and the application is
determined from small database in the Windows
Registry. Many applications fills the records for
their supported file types when they are started for
the first time. I think that the information collected
in the DocumentTemplate records is enough to fill the
types database. For that aim the library should export
function like:

registerFileTypes :: IO ()

The only missing part is that to fill the database we
need the document name. For example for MP3 files the
usual name is MP3File, for GIF - GIFFile ... The
document name can be constructed from the
dtContentType field (announced above) and the "File"
word. Under Mac the registerFileTypes function can
generate the "property list" file.

Cheers,

Krasimir

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com