6.19 File Requester

The File Requester Dialog is used for choosing filename for reading and writing to files. The directions for the file manipulation are listed at the top of the dialog. Typically the directions will ask the user to "Select a File for xxx" where xxx is one of "Opening", "Appending", "Writing", etc. Under the directions is the prompt "Enter Filename", and a FieldEditor where the user can type in the name of the file.

Below the FieldEditor is a vertical scrollbox of filenames in the current directory. If there are more names than will fit in the window, the scrollbar on the right edge of the scrollbox can be used to scroll through the full listing. A filename can be chosen by clicking on the name in the scrollbox. Subdirectories are listed with a slash ('/') following the name, and can be read in by double-clicking on their name. The "../" directory can be used to navigate up a directory level.

Below the filename scrollbox is a Field Editor for the filename filter. The String listed here is a unix csh filename completion string. Wildcards can be specified using the '*' character. See the csh man page for more details. Typically this field will be set by PDP++ to limit the range of filenames available to those which correspond to the type of file the dialog is to act upon. (e.g., If projects are being loaded, then the filter will be set to "*.proj.*" to limit the selection to files with ".proj" in the filename.) In most cases, compressed files can be loaded and saved as well.

Below the filter Field Editor are the action buttons. The leftmost button will perform the action specified in the directions at the top of the dialog. The rightmost button is the "Cancel" button and will exit the dialog without performing the action. Double-clicking on a filename, or pressing the "return" key, also causes the dialog's action to be taken.