Re: Control hidden folder/file settings?

> [ Sorry, other stuff kept piling up. Hope this isn't too late. And
> your newsreader isn't quoting properly; fixed that, please look at its
> settings and fix it. ]
>

Sorry, I was just writing offline in a text file and pasting it in.
That's why it wasn't standard quoting.
I wasn't expecting you to respond again (since I got my
answer that I cannot change the meaning of "." systemwide)
but I appreciate your efforts. I've noticed that you write thorough
answers to quite a few posts here.

> > I keep
> > making various assumptions that are so basic I don't realize I'm
> > making them. The notion of a centralized API is one of those
> > assumptions. At this point I don't have a clear idea of how things fit
> > together on Linux.
>
> Hm. OK, it's complex, but there are people who'll help you. I'll
> give a brief overview; ask questions about anything that grabs your
> attention:
>
> Linux GUIs typically run on top of X, which is roughly analogous to
> the "display driver" in OS X/Windows. X provides a way for applications
> ("X clients") to draw pixels on screen and receive mouse/keyboard input.
> X does not enforce much of anything in terms of application look+feel.
> That's left up to individual apps and the window manager.
>
> X's window manager doesn't really have an analogue in Windows/OS X. The
> window manager controls where the windows are on the screen and draws
> the frame and decorations for each window. Window managers run from the
> insanely lightweight (ratpoison/ion) to the featureful (kwin). You can
> even run X without a window manager if you want--that means you can't
> move or resize windows! This is done in kiosk apps, where you just want
> 1 app running.
>
> Instead of a standardized GUI widget set (Win32 / Carbon / Cocoa), apps
> can use any widget set they want. GTK+ is really the most common, KDE
> the next most, then probably wxWindows, then Tcl/Athena/Lesstif bringing
> up the rear. All widget sets look different, but they all behave
> basically the same way except for Athena's weird scrollbars. GTK+ and
> KDE widgets are themeable; you control them with KDE Control Center or
> ... gconf? Something like that. That lets you make the widgets look
> pretty, which is amusing and fun for ~30 minutes.
>

I think I have an idea of what you're describing.
I guess it will become more clear if I look into the APIs
of X, GTK, etc. It sounds like X is the basics - the hardware
interface functions - but with only basic functionality to
actually draw "widgets". (By widgets I gather that you mean
component windows like buttons, text boxes, etc.) Then the
window managers are each a complete kit of
relatively-easy-to-use GUI parts? Does one typically use
both X and a window manager, or is X accessed through
the window manager functions?

> >>> (The one time that I did try entering the hidden path by hand it was
> >>> not recognized.)
> >> This is more troubling. Which version of which application were you
> >> using, and was it KDE, GTK+, or something else?
> > This is interesting. I see what you mean about different file browsing
> > GUI layouts. I can't browse for files in a hidden folder in Firefox
>
> This is weird. Firefox 1.0.7 here, the "open file" dialog has a
> checkbox called "show hidden files" in the bottom left corner. Checking
> it shows all files that begin with a . , which makes things easier.

Odd. I've got Firefox 1.5 and there's no such checkbox. The
whole window is a bit strange. The selected path shows
as a series of buttons rather than a text input field. The window
has no configuration options at all.

>
> > the Wine Windows browsing dialogue because they neither show hidden
> > files nor provide for text input.
>
> Wine is a special case. Um... hmm, if I do "wine pq.exe" I get
> ProgressQuest's normal dialog. Pick "Open File", I get a standard
> Win2K-like "open file" dialog. I can put ".wine" into the "file name"
> portion of that dialog, and pq.exe shows my ~/.wine directory. Maybe
> it's dependent on what you're running with wine?
>
It doesn't seem to be. I don't know what ProgressQuest is
(a game?) but what you describe doesn't work for me in anything I
test it with. Using Wine.9.5. Trying running as 98 and 2000. If I enter
..wine there's just no response. On the other hand, I wouldn't expect
there to be one, since that input is expecting a file name. I don't
know what would affect its behavior. It comes from comdlg32.dll in
Windows but I doubt that either of us has the native version of that.

> For kwrite, File->Open File. The open file dialog will appear. You
> should be able to find the icon that looks like a hammer and wrench in
> that open file dialog, click on it, then select "show hidden files".
> (Or just hit F8.) Your KDE may not have that feature in exactly the
> same place--I'm using KDE 3.4.3 here--but it should be there somewhere.
>

Ah, that worked. Thanks. I'll have to be more
mindful of differences with these GUIs. I hadn't
even noticed that the KWrite dialogue had extra
buttons.




.

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