Suggestion: GtkLog widget

[Tomi Ollila <Tomi Ollila tfi net>]

Hi

I have seen several programs opening several message windows when something
has gone wrong while continuing to work.

It is pretty tedious to click close button of those all.

It would be much nicer if only one window opens which will have a text
area (w/ a scroll bar when needed) where all new messages are to be
appended.

My suggestion that there would be a standard GTK widget with such
functionality. Name it GtkLog or something.

The widget could work like the following:

There could be different priority levels, like in syslog.

When widget is created, it is configured to pop up when a message
among certain priorities is sent to it. 

At program run time when such a message arrives, the gtklog window
will appear. The window could have a `configuration' pop-up menu
which would allow change the pop-up behaviour. There could also
be `filter' functionality in configuration menu - to not show
certain messages (but not leave them off altogether).

The window would have a close button which will hide it from the screen
(but not destroy the widget, of course).

The program could have a "show log window" - button in a 
`preferences' dialog.

As an extra functionality, the `GtkLog' widget could also have ability
to output the log also to a log file -- whose name is determinable
by an interface function.


Tomi