Re: "What's this"

[jg pa dec com (Jim Gettys)]

All that is really needed is to decorate the widget windows with
the class and instance data from the toolkit, and then one can
have an external process do the display.

We need that data for things like "Hands off X" to work,
and doing it externally means that it can be done to almost any
application, independent of the author, in a uniform fashion
across toolkits.
				- Jim

> Sender: wm-spec-list-admin gnome org
> From: Elliot Lee <sopwith redhat com>
> Date: Fri, 4 May 2001 15:14:07 -0400 (EDT)
> To: <wm-spec-list gnome org>
> Subject: Re: "What's this"
> -----
> On Fri, 4 May 2001, Cristian Tibirna wrote:
> 
> > > Has anyone implemented or considered implementing the Windows feature
> > > where the frame has a ? on it, and you click that to enter "What's
> > > this" mode and can then get help on stuff in the window? (Or is it a
> > > global mode and you can get help on anything onscreen?)
> >
> > KDE has it all over the place. You actually get help only for the widgets
> for
> > which you write "what's this" information explicitely, in KDE. But I believe
> > this could be implemented otherwise in other places.
> >
> > > Seems like we could have a simple protocol enabling this.
> >
> > Hmm?
> >
> > Isn't this in the new NET spec already?
> 
> KDE just uses the Qt hack that does it in one process only. Doing that is
> easy and irrelevant to this list. A reasonable requirement would be for a
> "what's this" solution to work inter-application, which would mean coming
> up with an X protocol to do it.
> 
> I started looking at this for gnome-libs once - the way I was thinking of
> doing it was having cursor feedback similar to DnD to point out areas that
> help can be given for, plus a way to tell the clicked-on area to show its
> help, once it is clicked.
> 
> -- Elliot
> These three lines
>         are for sale
>                 at the rate of $50/month.
> 
> 
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--
Jim Gettys
Technology and Corporate Development
Compaq Computer Corporation
jg pa dec com