[PD-dev] [ pure-data-Patches-3296739 ] make helpbrowser separate directories and patches

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Patches item #3296739, was opened at 2011-05-03 10:44
Message generated for change (Comment added) made by zmoelnig
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Category: puredata
Group: bugfix
Status: Open
Resolution: None
Priority: 5
Private: No
Submitted By: IOhannes m zmölnig (zmoelnig)
>Assigned to: Miller Puckette (millerpuckette)
Summary: make helpbrowser separate directories and patches

Initial Comment:
starting Pd(0.43)  with custom search paths (e.g. "-path /path/to/Gem), results in a not-so-nice help-browser experience: 
basically the left column (the one that is crucial for navigating the various directories) is filled with all help-patches found in all search-paths, sorted alphabetically (so directories are lost somewhere between files), and upper-case before lower-case.

if a search-path is a child of another search path (e.g. /usr/lib/pd/extra/Gem is child of /usr/lib/pd), then both the directory ("Gem/") and it's content (too many to list here) are listed, making the information accessible several times (adding more confusion)

i don't know exactly where to fix the problem, but a simple solution would be to only allow directories on the left side (and add an entry for "<searchpaths>" (probably an entry for "all searchpaths" and separate entries for each searchpath), rather than throwing everything together.


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>Comment By: IOhannes m zmölnig (zmoelnig)
Date: 2011-05-04 19:13

Message:
you are right that the problem first occured to me when dealing with Gem;
however there is nothing Gem specific to it.
however, i don't know why this makes the patch pre-mature.

as for sorting files and directories: here on xfce4, the Pd filebrowser
will sort directories before files.
however, i don't see how this would matter, as the helpbrowser does not
behave like an ordinary file browser on most systems anyhow; e.g. the
"Pure-data" and "-------" entries are quite uncommon.

i'm only suggesting to add "sections" for the various libraries/libdirs
before displaying all the help-patches.

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Comment By: Hans-Christoph Steiner (eighthave)
Date: 2011-05-04 18:32

Message:
I'm guessing this is related to your problem with the Gem abstractions
showing up in the root of the help browser.  I think the problem is
elsewhere since its not happening with gridflow or other Gem builds, so
this patch is pre-mature. As for the relative merits of sorting files and
directories, that is a bigger, more annoying question.  Windows sorts
directories at the top then files after,  other OS file browsers that I
have seen (mostly GNOME and Mac OS X) sort files and dirs together. 
Therefore, I think this patch would only make sense if that behavior was
Windows only.

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Comment By: IOhannes m zmölnig (zmoelnig)
Date: 2011-05-03 10:47

Message:
an alternative is to separate directories from files in the root-column,
rather than mixing them together, which makes the browser somewhat
navigable (and was way easier to implement :-))

see attached patch.

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You can respond by visiting: 
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=478072&aid=3296739&group_id=55736