editres
a dynamic resource editor for X Toolkit applications
see also :
X - xrdb
add an example, a script, a trick and tips
examples
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description
Editres is a
tool that allows users and application developers to view
the full widget hierarchy of any X Toolkit application that
speaks the Editres protocol. In addition, editres will help
the user construct resource specifications, allow the user
to apply the resource to the application and view the
results dynamically. Once the user is happy with a resource
specification editres will append the resource string to the
user’s X Resources file.
options
Editres
accepts all of the standard X Toolkit command line options
(see X(7)). The order of the command line options is
not important.
blocking editres requests
The editres protocol has been built into the Athena Widget set.
This allows all applications that are linked against Xaw to be
able to speak to the resource editor. While this provides great
flexibility, and is a useful tool, it can quite easily be abused.
It is therefore possible for any Xaw application to specify a
value for the editresBlock resource described below, to
keep editres from divulging information about its internals, or
to disable the SetValues part of the protocol.
editresBlock (Class EditresBlock)
Specifies which type of blocking this application wishes to
impose on the editres protocol.
The accepted values are:
all
Block all requests.
setValues
Block all SetValues requests. As this is the only editres request
that actually modifies the application, this is in effect stating
that the application is read-only.
none
Allow all editres requests.
Remember that these resources are set on any Xaw application,
not editres. They allow individual applications to keep
all or some of the requests editres makes from ever succeeding.
Of course, editres is also an Xaw application, so it may also be
viewed and modified by editres (rather recursive, I know), these
commands can be blocked by setting the editresBlock
resource on editres itself.
commands
Get Widget Tree
Allows the user to click on any application that speaks the
editres protocol and receive its widget tree.
Refresh Current Widget Tree
Editres only knows about the widgets that exist at the present
time. Many applications create and destroy widgets on the fly.
Selecting this menu item will cause editres to ask the
application to resend its widget tree, thus updating its
information to the new state of the application.
For example, xman only creates the widgets for its topbox
when it starts up. None of the widgets for the manual page window
are created until the user actually clicks on the Manual
Page button. If you retrieved xman’s widget tree before the
the manual page is active, you may wish to refresh the widget
tree after the manual page has been displayed. This will allow
you to also edit the manual page’s resources.
Dump Widget Tree to a File
For documenting applications it is often useful to be able to
dump the entire application widget tree to an ASCII file. This
file can then be included in the manual page. When this menu item
is selected a popup dialog is activated. Type the name of the
file in this dialog, and either select okay, or type a
carriage-return. Editres will now dump the widget tree to this
file. To cancel the file dialog, select the cancel button.
Show Resource Box
This command will popup a resource box for the current
application. This resource box (described in detail below) will
allow the user to see exactly which resources can be set for the
widget that is currently selected in the widget tree display.
Only one widget may be currently selected; if greater or fewer
are selected editres will refuse to pop up the resource box and
put an error message in the Message Area.
Set Resource
This command will popup a simple dialog box for setting an
arbitrary resource on all selected widgets. You must type in the
resource name, as well as the value. You can use the Tab key to
switch between the resource name field the resource value field.
Quit
Exits editres.
display
to get the default host and display number.
XENVIRONMENT
to get the name of a resource file that overrides the global
resources stored in the RESOURCE_MANAGER property.
environment
files
/etc/X11/app-defaults/Editres
specifies required resources
resources
For editres the available application resources are:
numFlashes (Class NumFlashes)
Specifies the number of times the widgets in the application will
be flashed when the Show Active Widgets command in
invoked.
flashTime (Class FlashTime)
Amount of time between the flashes described above.
flashColor (Class flashColor)
Specifies the color used to flash application widgets. A bright
color should be used that will immediately draw your attention to
the area being flashed, such as red or yellow.
saveResourcesFile (Class SaveResourcesFile)
This is the file the resource line will be append to when the
Save button activated in the resource box.
restrictions
This is a prototype, there are lots of nifty features I would
love to add, but I hope this will give you some ideas about what
a resource editor can do.
syntax
editres [ -toolkitoption ... ]
tree commands
The Tree menu contains several commands that allow
operations to be performed on the widget tree.
Select Widget in Client
This menu item allows you to select any widget in the
application; editres will then highlight the corresponding
element the widget tree display. Once this menu item is selected
the pointer cursor will again turn to a crosshair, and you must
click any pointer button in the widget you wish to have
displayed. Since some widgets are fully obscured by their
children, it is not possible to get to every widget this way, but
this mechanism does give very useful feedback between the
elements in the widget tree and those in the actual application.
Select All
Unselect All
Invert All
These functions allow the user to select, unselect, or invert all
widgets in the widget tree.
Select Children
Select Parents
These functions select the immediate parent or children of each
of the currently selected widgets.
Select Descendants
Select Ancestors
These functions select all parents or children of each of the
currently selected widgets. This is a recursive search.
Show Widget Names
Show Class Names
Show Widget IDs
Show Widget Windows
When the tree widget is initially displayed the labels of each
widget in the tree correspond to the widget names. These
functions will cause the label of all widgets in the tree
to be changed to show the class name, IDs, or window associated
with each widget in the application. The widget IDs, and windows
are shown as hex numbers.
In addition there are keyboard accelerators for each of the Tree
operations. If the input focus is over an individual widget in
the tree, then that operation will only effect that widget. If
the input focus is in the Tree background it will have exactly
the same effect as the corresponding menu item.
The translation entries shown may be applied to any widget in the
application. If that widget is a child of the Tree widget, then
it will only affect that widget, otherwise it will have the same
effect as the commands in the tree menu.
Flash Active Widgets
This command is the inverse of the Select Widget in Client
command, it will show the user each widget that is currently
selected in the widget tree, by flashing the corresponding widget
in the application numFlashes (three by default) times in
the flashColor.
Clicking button 1 on a widget adds it to the set of selected
widgets. Clicking button 2 on a widget deselects all other
widgets and then selects just that widget. Clicking button 3 on a
widget toggles its label between the widget’s instance name the
widget’s class name.
using editres
Editres provides a window consisting of the following four
areas:
Menu Bar
A set of popup menus that allow you full access to editres’s
features.
Panner
The panner allows a more intuitive way to scroll the application
tree display.
Message Area
Displays information to the user about the action that editres
expects of her.
Application Widget Tree
This area will be used to display the selected application’s
widget tree.
To begin an editres session select the Get Widget Tree
menu item from the command menu. This will change the pointer
cursor to cross hair. You should now select the application you
wish look at by clicking on any of its windows. If this
application understands the editres protocol then editres will
display the application’s widget tree in its tree window. If the
application does not understand the editres protocol editres will
inform you of this fact in the message area after a few seconds
delay.
Once you have a widget tree you may now select any of the other
menu options. The effect of each of these is described below.
using the resource box
The resource box contains five different areas. Each of the
areas, as they appear on the screen, from top to bottom will be
discussed.
The Resource Line
This area at the top of the resource box shows the current
resource name exactly as it would appear if you were to save it
to a file or apply it.
The Widget Names and Classes
This area allows you to select exactly which widgets this
resource will apply to. The area contains four lines, the first
contains the name of the selected widget and all its ancestors,
and the more restrictive dot (.) separator. The second
line contains less specific the Class names of each widget, and
well as the less restrictive star (*) separator. The third
line contains a set of special buttons called Any Widget
which will generalize this level to match any widget. The last
line contains a set of special buttons called Any Widget
Chain which will turn the single level into something that
matches zero or more levels.
The initial state of this area is the most restrictive, using the
resource names and the dot separator. By selecting the other
buttons in this area you can ease the restrictions to allow more
and more widgets to match the specification. The extreme case is
to select all the Any Widget Chain buttons, which will
match every widget in the application. As you select different
buttons the tree display will update to show you exactly which
widgets will be effected by the current resource specification.
Normal and Constraint Resources
The next area allows you to select the name of the normal or
constraint resources you wish to set. Some widgets may not have
constraint resources, so that area will not appear.
Resource Value
This next area allows you to enter the resource value. This value
should be entered exactly as you would type a line into your
resource file. Thus it should contain no unescaped new-lines.
There are a few special character sequences for this file:
\n - This will be replaced with a newline.
\### - Where # is any octal digit. This will be replaced with a
single byte that contains this sequence interpreted as an octal
number. For example, a value containing a NULL byte can be stored
by specifying \000.
\<new-line> - This will compress to nothing.
\\ - This will compress to a single backslash.
Command Area
This area contains several command buttons, described in this
section.
Set Save File
This button allows the user to modify file that the resources
will be saved to. This button will bring up a dialog box that
will ask you for a filename; once the filename has been entered,
either hit carriage-return or click on the okay button. To
pop down the dialog box without changing the save file, click the
cancel button.
Save
This button will append the resource line described above
to the end of the current save file. If no save file has been set
the Set Save File dialog box will be popped up to prompt
the user for a filename.
Apply
This button attempts to perform a XtSetValues call on all widgets
that match the resource line described above. The value
specified is applied directly to all matching widgets. This
behavior is an attempt to give a dynamic feel to the resource
editor. Since this feature allows users to put an application in
states it may not be willing to handle, a hook has been provided
to allow specific applications to block these SetValues requests
(see Blocking Editres Requests below).
Unfortunately due to design constraints imposed on the widgets by
the X Toolkit and the Resource Manager, trying to coerce an
inherently static system into dynamic behavior can cause strange
results. There is no guarantee that the results of an apply will
be the same as what will happen when you save the value and
restart the application. This functionality is provided to try to
give you a rough feel for what your changes will accomplish, and
the results obtained should be considered suspect at best. Having
said that, this is one of the neatest features of editres, and I
strongly suggest that you play with it, and see what it can do.
Save and Apply
This button combines the Save and Apply actions described above
into one button.
Popdown Resource Box
This button will remove the resource box from the display.
widgets
In order to specify resources, it is useful to know the hierarchy
of the widgets which compose editres. In the notation
below, indentation indicates hierarchical structure. The widget
class name is given first, followed by the widget instance name.
Editres editres
Paned paned
Box box
MenuButton commands
SimpleMenu menu
SmeBSB sendTree
SmeBSB refreshTree
SmeBSB dumpTreeToFile
SmeLine line
SmeBSB getResourceList
SmeLine line
SmeBSB quit
MenuButton treeCommands
SimpleMenu menu
SmeBSB showClientWidget
SmeBSB selectAll
SmeBSB unselectAll
SmeBSB invertAll
SmeLine line
SmeBSB selectChildren
SmeBSB selectParent
SmeBSB selectDescendants
SmeBSB selectAncestors
SmeLine line
SmeBSB showWidgetNames
SmeBSB showClassNames
SmeBSB showWidgetIDs
SmeBSB showWidgetWindows
SmeLine line
SmeBSB flashActiveWidgets
Paned hPane
Panner panner
Label userMessage
Grip grip
Porthole porthole
Tree tree
Toggle <name of widget in application>
.
.
.
TransientShell resourceBox
Paned pane
Label resourceLabel
Form namesAndClasses
Toggle dot
Toggle star
Toggle any
Toggle name
Toggle class
.
.
.
Label namesLabel
List namesList
Label constraintLabel
List constraintList
Form valueForm
Label valueLabel
Text valueText
Box commandBox
Command setFile
Command save
Command apply
Command saveAndApply
Command cancel
Grip grip
Grip grip
see also
X , xrdb ,
Athena Widget Set
author
Chris D.
Peterson, formerly MIT X Consortium