select-file

# select-file

### Copyright (c) 2017-2018 John Carroll, Ann Copestake, Robert Malouf, Stephan Oepen
### Copyright (c) 2020 John Carroll, Ann Copestake, Robert Malouf, Stephan Oepen, Angelo Rossi

### Author: John Carroll _<j.a.carroll@sussex.ac.uk>_
### Repackaging, additions for OpenBSD, FreeBSD: Angelo Rossi _<angelo.rossi.homelab@gmail.com>_

File selector dialog for use with McCLIM applications
=====================================================

## License

MIT

A file selector for CLIM 2, including some programmable customization features.

The API is similar to the select-file in the Franz Inc CLIM 2 User Guide, but is
intended to be more usable than the Franz implementation, and to provide a facility
that's missing from McCLIM (there is no select-file in the CLIM 2 Specification).
It also takes inspiration and some implementation ideas from the nice file browsers
in the McCLIM Lisp Listener, Gsharp, and Ernestine.

Developed and tested in McCLIM versions up to mcclim-20200218 (in SBCL and Clozure CL);
also in Franz Allegro CLIM 2.1 / Allegro CL 10.0. Not (yet) tested in LispWorks or
Liquid CLIM.

  select-file &rest args
              &key (frame-name 'file-selector)
                   title
                   (prompt "Name:")
                   (directory (user-homedir-pathname))
                   (dialog-type :save)
                   show-hidden-p
                   (ok-label "OK")
              &allow-other-keys

Other keyword arguments are passed through to make-application-frame, so the programmer
may also call select-file with arguments accepted by that function. These include:

  left top right bottom
  width height
  icon properties
  user-specified-position-p user-specified-size-p (only in Allegro CLIM)
  text-style foreground background (only relevant for Allegro CLIM, since it passes these two
    arguments down to gadget panes)

A calling program may specialize the file-selector class and pass the new class name via
the :frame-name argument. The generic functions list-directory, list-places and list-devices
can be specialised on this new file selector class. E.g.

  (defclass my-file-selector (sf:file-selector) ())
  (defmethod sf:list-places ((frame my-file-selector))
    (append (call-next-method) (list #P"~/common-lisp/mcclim/")))
  (sf:select-file :frame-name 'my-file-selector)

The following potential issues have been tested: unreadable directories, 'hidden' files
and directories, large directories (e.g. /usr/bin/), filenames containing non-printing
characters, reentrancy (more than one concurrent dialog), 'places' that are files
not directories. It would have been good to have a drop-down menu containing the path to
the directory being displayed, but unfortunately the obvious choice of using an option-list
pane doesn't work since the items in an option-list cannot be dynamically updated.

Distinctive features:

* When dialog-type is :save the user may type in a file name (for use as a "save file"
dialog), when it is :open the user may only select existing files, and when it is
:directory the user may only select existing directories.
* If the user resizes the dialog, the files/directories pane updates its layout to make
best use of the horizontal space.
* The programmer can change the pre-supplied lists of files/directories, places and
devices in the left-hand pane.

Bugs:

* In Allegro CLIM, clicking in the left or right browsing pane and then typing causes the
characters to be written into the frame not the filename text field; also, the filename
text field must be clicked on before it can be typed into.

Examples:

(sf:select-file)
(sf:select-file :title "Open" :prompt "File:" :dialog-type :open :ok-label "Open")
(sf:select-file :dialog-type :save :show-hidden-p t)
(sf:select-file :dialog-type :directory)
(sf:select-file :directory "/usr/bin/" :left 300 :top 200 :width 400 :height 600)


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