Re: Alias expansion update.

[Ian Campbell <ijc25 cam ac uk>]

On 2000-11-28 18:28:39 +0000 Berend De Schouwer wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> The patch attached should provide better alias expansion for most people.
> Its been working fine for me for two days, so I am making it available
> for testing.
> 
> Advantages for users:
> - The keys should behave a lot more intuitive now.
>   Keys that work better include ',', 'end', 'home', 'left', 'right', etc.

Cool, is tab still used to cycle? This interferes with moving between
widgets. Perhaps Up and Down could be used?

> - It now will no longer mangle your input when showing you an expansion.
> 
> Advantages for developers:
> - The data structures used are better.
> - It should be easier (not easy) to provide a GUI drop-down instead
>   of expanding in the GtkEntry box.
> 
> Caveats:
> - It no longer colours the expansion.  I can only do this with
>   gtk_editable_set_selection(), which breaks normal cut & paste
>   in the e-mail.  Can anybody tell me how to add colour to a
>   GtkEntry() widget?

I think that instead of wrapping an API around the GtkEntry you should
sub-class it (BalsaAddressEntry??). Then you can override the draw method
and do what ever you want, ie draw the completed part in ghosted text or
whatever (little arrow symbols to indicate more completions, eye candy like
that).

I also suspect that if you are doing some of the drawing yourself that you
can simplify the data structures further (not that I have seen the new
ones) since you can keep them as you want them, and not have to bend over
backwards to make it convenient to insert into a GtkEntry.

> - The patch should work against CVS.  It won't work against
>   Balsa 1.0.0.
> - Uses a huge amount of g_message() statements that should
>   be removed when people are happy it works.
> 
> 
> Kind regards,				  
> Berend                                  
> 
> -- 
> -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
> Berend De Schouwer, +27-11-712-1435, UCS
> 



-- 
Ian Campbell
Churchill College, Cambridge.