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From: jkh@meepmeep.pcs.com (Jordan K. Hubbard)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Getting more information from the textWidget
Message-ID: <962@pcsbst.UUCP>
Date: 23 Aug 89 21:25:12 GMT
Sender: news@pcsbst.UUCP
Reply-To: jkh@meepmeep.pcs.com (Jordan K. Hubbard)
Organization: PCS Computer Systeme, GmbH
Lines: 29


I have an application where I need to display a file (quickly) in
a widget and hilight a line in it under program control. I also need
to allow the user to scroll through this file, perhaps clicking on
a line of particular interest (which will become the highlighted line).

I decided to use an asciiStringWidget for this and quickly noticed a few
things that it would be handy to have.

1. When the user clicks on a line, I need to know what line was clicked. I've
   defined my own selectionType array that disallows all but line selection,
   but querying the selection only gives me start and ending character
   positions. Given that the text widget keeps an internal line table, it
   seems a real shame that I have to duplicate its work by building a line
   table of my own and translating the start/end positions into a line number
   by brute force. This also keeps me from using an asciiDiskWidget, which
   is a lot closer to what I want in the first place. Likewise, when I want
   to highlight a line, I cannot do it except by means of my own internal
   table.

2. There doesn't seem to be any way of calling the action proceedures
   under program control. This would be useful.


				Jordan
			PCS Computer Systeme GmbH, Munich, West Germany
	UUCP:		pyramid!pcsbst!jkh jkh@meepmeep.pcs.com
	EUNET:		unido!pcsbst!jkh
	ARPA:		jkh@violet.berkeley.edu or hubbard@decwrl.dec.com