EDITRES(1)                  General Commands Manual                 EDITRES(1)



NAME
       editres - a dynamic resource editor for X Toolkit applications

SYNTAX
       editres [ -toolkitoption ... ]

OPTIONS
       Editres accepts all of the standard X Toolkit command line options (see
       X(7)).  The order of the command line options is not important.

DESCRIPTION
       Editres is a tool that allows users and application developers to  view
       the  full widget hierarchy of any X Toolkit application that speaks the
       Editres protocol.  In addition, editres will help  the  user  construct
       resource  specifications,  allow  the user to apply the resource to the
       application and view the results dynamically.  Once the user  is  happy
       with  a  resource specification editres will append the resource string
       to the user's X Resources file.

USING EDITRES
       Editres provides a window consisting of the following four areas:

       Menu Bar                 A set of  popup  menus  that  allow  you  full
                                access to editres's features.

       Panner                   The  panner  allows  a  more  intuitive way to
                                scroll the application tree display.

       Message Area             Displays information to  the  user  about  the
                                action that editres expects of her.

       Application Widget Tree  This area will be used to display the selected
                                application's widget tree.

       To begin an editres session select the Get Widget Tree menu  item  from
       the  command  menu.  This will change the pointer cursor to cross hair.
       You should now select the application you wish look at by  clicking  on
       any of its windows.  If this application understands the editres proto-
       col then editres will display the application's widget tree in its tree
       window.   If  the  application does not understand the editres protocol
       editres will inform you of this fact in the message area  after  a  few
       seconds delay.

       Once  you  have  a widget tree you may now select any of the other menu
       options. The effect of each of these is described below.

COMMANDS
       Get Widget Tree
               Allows the user to click on any  application  that  speaks  the
               editres protocol and receive its widget tree.

       Refresh Current Widget Tree
               Editres  only knows about the widgets that exist at the present
               time.  Many applications create and destroy widgets on the fly.
               Selecting this menu item will cause editres to ask the applica-
               tion to resend its widget tree, thus updating  its  information
               to the new state of the application.

               For  example, xman only creates the widgets for its topbox when
               it starts up.  None of the widgets for the manual  page  window
               are  created  until the user actually clicks on the Manual Page
               button.  If you retrieved xman's widget  tree  before  the  the
               manual  page is active, you may wish to refresh the widget tree
               after the manual page has been displayed.  This will allow  you
               to also edit the manual page's resources.

       Dump Widget Tree to a File
               For  documenting  applications it is often useful to be able to
               dump the entire application widget tree to an ASCII file.  This
               file  can  then be included in the manual page.  When this menu
               item is selected a popup dialog is activated.  Type the name of
               the file in this dialog, and either select okay, or type a car-
               riage-return.  Editres will now dump the widget  tree  to  this
               file.  To cancel the file dialog, select the cancel button.

       Show Resource Box
               This command will popup a resource box for the current applica-
               tion.  This resource box (described in detail below) will allow
               the user to see exactly which resources can be set for the wid-
               get that is currently selected  in  the  widget  tree  display.
               Only  one widget may be currently selected; if greater or fewer
               are selected editres will refuse to pop up the resource box and
               put an error message in the Message Area.

       Set Resource
               This  command  will  popup  a  simple dialog box for setting an
               arbitrary resource on all selected widgets.  You must  type  in
               the  resource  name, as well as the value.  You can use the Tab
               key to switch between the  resource  name  field  the  resource
               value field.

       Quit    Exits editres.

TREE COMMANDS
       The  Tree  menu  contains  several commands that allow operations to be
       performed on the widget tree.

       Select Widget in Client
              This menu item allows you to select any widget in  the  applica-
              tion;  editres will then highlight the corresponding element the
              widget tree display.   Once  this  menu  item  is  selected  the
              pointer  cursor  will  again  turn  to a crosshair, and you must
              click any pointer button in the widget you  wish  to  have  dis-
              played.   Since  some  widgets are fully obscured by their chil-
              dren, it is not possible to get to every widget  this  way,  but
              this  mechanism  does give very useful feedback between the ele-
              ments in the widget tree and those in the actual application.

       Select All

       Unselect All

       Invert All
              These functions allow the user to select,  unselect,  or  invert
              all widgets in the widget tree.

       Select Children

       Select Parents
              These  functions select the immediate parent or children of each
              of the currently selected widgets.

       Select Descendants

       Select Ancestors
              These functions select all parents or children of  each  of  the
              currently selected widgets.  This is a recursive search.

       Show Widget Names

       Show Class Names

       Show Widget IDs

       Show Widget Windows
              When  the  tree widget is initially displayed the labels of each
              widget in the tree correspond to the widget names.  These  func-
              tions  will  cause  the  label  of all widgets in the tree to be
              changed to show the class name, IDs, or window  associated  with
              each widget in the application.  The widget IDs, and windows are
              shown as hex numbers.

       In addition there are keyboard accelerators for each of the Tree opera-
       tions.   If  the  input focus is over an individual widget in the tree,
       then that operation will only effect that widget.  If the  input  focus
       is  in  the Tree background it will have exactly the same effect as the
       corresponding menu item.

       The translation entries shown may be  applied  to  any  widget  in  the
       application.   If  that  widget  is a child of the Tree widget, then it
       will only affect that widget, otherwise it will have the same effect as
       the commands in the tree menu.

       Flash Active Widgets
              This  command is the inverse of the Select Widget in Client com-
              mand, it will show  the  user  each  widget  that  is  currently
              selected  in the widget tree, by flashing the corresponding wid-
              get in the application numFlashes (three by  default)  times  in
              the flashColor.


              Key     Option                     Translation Entry
              -
              space   Unselect                   Select(nothing)
              w       Select                     Select(widget)
              s       Select                     Select(all)
              i       Invert                     Select(invert)
              c       Select Children            Select(children)
              d       Select Descendants         Select(descendants)
              p       Select Parent              Select(parent)
              a       Select Ancestors           Select(ancestors)
              N       Show Widget Names          Relabel(name)
              C       Show Class Names           Relabel(class)
              I       Show Widget IDs            Relabel(id)
              W       Show Widget Windows        Relabel(window)
              T       Toggle Widget/Class Name   Relabel(toggle)

              Clicking  button  1  on  a widget adds it to the set of selected
              widgets.  Clicking button 2 on a widget deselects all other wid-
              gets  and then selects just that widget.  Clicking button 3 on a
              widget toggles its label between the widget's instance name  the
              widget's class name.


USING THE RESOURCE BOX
       The  resource box contains five different areas.  Each of the areas, as
       they appear on the screen, from top to bottom will be discussed.

       The Resource Line
              This area at the top of  the  resource  box  shows  the  current
              resource  name exactly as it would appear if you were to save it
              to a file or apply it.

       The Widget Names and Classes
              This area allows  you  to  select  exactly  which  widgets  this
              resource will apply to.  The area contains four lines, the first
              contains the name of the selected widget and all its  ancestors,
              and  the  more  restrictive  dot (.) separator.  The second line
              contains less specific the Class names of each widget, and  well
              as the less restrictive star (*) separator.  The third line con-
              tains a set of special buttons called Any Widget which will gen-
              eralize  this level to match any widget.  The last line contains
              a set of special buttons called Any Widget Chain which will turn
              the  single  level into something that matches zero or more lev-
              els.

              The initial state of this area is the  most  restrictive,  using
              the  resource  names  and  the  dot separator.  By selecting the
              other buttons in this area you  can  ease  the  restrictions  to
              allow  more  and  more  widgets to match the specification.  The
              extreme case is to select all  the  Any  Widget  Chain  buttons,
              which  will  match  every  widget  in  the application.   As you
              select different buttons the tree display will  update  to  show
              you  exactly  which  widgets  will  be  effected  by the current
              resource specification.

       Normal and Constraint Resources
              The next area allows you to select the name  of  the  normal  or
              constraint resources you wish to set.  Some widgets may not have
              constraint resources, so that area will not appear.

       Resource Value
              This next area allows you to enter  the  resource  value.   This
              value  should  be  entered exactly as you would type a line into
              your resource file.  Thus it should contain  no  unescaped  new-
              lines.   There  are  a  few special character sequences for this
              file:

              \n - This will be replaced with a newline.

              \### - Where # is any octal digit.  This will be replaced with a
              single  byte that contains this sequence interpreted as an octal
              number.  For example, a value containing  a  NULL  byte  can  be
              stored by specifying \000.

              \<new-line> - This will compress to nothing.

              \\ - This will compress to a single backslash.

       Command Area
              This  area  contains  several command buttons, described in this
              section.

       Set Save File
              This button allows the user to modify file  that  the  resources
              will  be  saved to.  This button will bring up a dialog box that
              will ask you for a filename; once the filename has been entered,
              either  hit carriage-return or click on the okay button.  To pop
              down the dialog box without changing the save  file,  click  the
              cancel button.

       Save   This button will append the resource line described above to the
              end of the current save file.  If no save file has been set  the
              Set  Save  File  dialog box will be popped up to prompt the user
              for a filename.

       Apply  This button attempts to perform a XtSetValues call on  all  wid-
              gets  that  match  the resource line described above.  The value
              specified is applied directly to  all  matching  widgets.   This
              behavior  is  an  attempt to give a dynamic feel to the resource
              editor.  Since this feature allows users to put  an  application
              in  states it may not be willing to handle, a hook has been pro-
              vided to allow specific applications to  block  these  SetValues
              requests (see Blocking Editres Requests below).

              Unfortunately  due  to design constraints imposed on the widgets
              by the X Toolkit and the Resource Manager, trying to  coerce  an
              inherently static system into dynamic behavior can cause strange
              results.  There is no guarantee that the  results  of  an  apply
              will be the same as what will happen when you save the value and
              restart the application.  This functionality is provided to  try
              to  give you a rough feel for what your changes will accomplish,
              and the results obtained should be considered suspect  at  best.
              Having  said  that,  this  is  one  of  the  neatest features of
              editres, and I strongly suggest that you play with it,  and  see
              what it can do.

       Save and Apply
              This  button combines the Save and Apply actions described above
              into one button.

       Popdown Resource Box
              This button will remove the resource box from the display.

BLOCKING EDITRES REQUESTS
       The editres protocol has been built into the Athena Widget  set.   This
       allows all applications that are linked against Xaw to be able to speak
       to the resource editor.  While this provides great flexibility, and  is
       a useful tool, it can quite easily be abused.  It is therefore possible
       for any Xaw  application  to  specify  a  value  for  the  editresBlock
       resource  described  below,  to keep editres from divulging information
       about its internals, or to disable the SetValues part of the protocol.

       editresBlock (Class EditresBlock)
               Specifies which type of blocking  this  application  wishes  to
               impose on the editres protocol.

       The accepted values are:

       all            Block all requests.

       setValues      Block  all  SetValues  requests.   As  this  is the only
                      editres request that actually modifies the  application,
                      this  is in effect stating that the application is read-
                      only.

       none           Allow all editres requests.

       Remember that these resources are  set  on  any  Xaw  application,  not
       editres.  They allow individual applications to keep all or some of the
       requests editres makes from ever succeeding.   Of  course,  editres  is
       also  an  Xaw  application,  so  it  may also be viewed and modified by
       editres (rather recursive, I know), these commands can  be  blocked  by
       setting the editresBlock resource on editres itself.

RESOURCES
       For editres the available application resources are:

       numFlashes (Class NumFlashes)
               Specifies  the  number  of times the widgets in the application
               will be  flashed  when  the  Show  Active  Widgets  command  in
               invoked.

       flashTime (Class FlashTime)
               Amount of time between the flashes described above.

       flashColor (Class flashColor)
               Specifies  the  color  used  to  flash  application widgets.  A
               bright color should be used that  will  immediately  draw  your
               attention to the area being flashed, such as red or yellow.

       saveResourcesFile (Class SaveResourcesFile)
               This  is  the file the resource line will be append to when the
               Save button activated in the resource box.

WIDGETS
       In order to specify resources, it is useful to know  the  hierarchy  of
       the  widgets which compose editres.  In the notation below, indentation
       indicates hierarchical structure.   The  widget  class  name  is  given
       first, followed by the widget instance name.

       Editres  editres
            Paned  paned
                 Box  box
                      MenuButton  commands
                           SimpleMenu  menu
                           SmeBSB  sendTree
                           SmeBSB  refreshTree
                           SmeBSB  dumpTreeToFile
                           SmeLine  line
                           SmeBSB  getResourceList
                           SmeLine  line
                           SmeBSB  quit
                      MenuButton  treeCommands
                           SimpleMenu  menu
                           SmeBSB  showClientWidget
                           SmeBSB  selectAll
                           SmeBSB  unselectAll
                           SmeBSB  invertAll
                           SmeLine  line
                           SmeBSB  selectChildren
                           SmeBSB  selectParent
                           SmeBSB  selectDescendants
                           SmeBSB  selectAncestors
                           SmeLine  line
                           SmeBSB  showWidgetNames
                           SmeBSB  showClassNames
                           SmeBSB  showWidgetIDs
                           SmeBSB  showWidgetWindows
                           SmeLine  line
                           SmeBSB  flashActiveWidgets
                 Paned  hPane
                      Panner  panner
                      Label  userMessage
                      Grip  grip
                 Porthole  porthole
                      Tree  tree
                           Toggle  <name of widget in application>
                           .
                           .
                           .
                           TransientShell  resourceBox
                           Paned  pane
                           Label  resourceLabel
                           Form  namesAndClasses
                           Toggle  dot
                           Toggle  star
                           Toggle  any
                           Toggle  name
                           Toggle  class
                                .
                                .
                                .
                           Label  namesLabel
                           List  namesList
                           Label  constraintLabel
                           List  constraintList
                           Form  valueForm
                           Label  valueLabel
                           Text  valueText
                           Box  commandBox
                           Command  setFile
                           Command  save
                           Command  apply
                           Command  saveAndApply
                           Command  cancel
                           Grip  grip
                 Grip  grip


ENVIRONMENT
       DISPLAY to get the default host and display number.

       XENVIRONMENT
               to  get  the  name of a resource file that overrides the global
               resources stored in the RESOURCE_MANAGER property.

FILES
       /etc/X11/app-defaults/Editres
              specifies required resources

SEE ALSO
       X(7), xrdb(1), Athena Widget Set

RESTRICTIONS
       This is a prototype, there are lots of nifty features I would  love  to
       add,  but  I  hope  this will give you some ideas about what a resource
       editor can do.

AUTHOR
       Chris D. Peterson, formerly MIT X Consortium




X Version 11                     editres 1.0.6                      EDITRES(1)
