Scala Open Dialog Intro for Windows Users

HI there,

I've done an introduction to the SCALA open dialog for
Windows users. I'm sure it is ninety percent appearance
and familiarity that's the issue, and with a few things explained one can
use it as easily as the Windows one - in fact it is
almost identical in the way it functions.

Here we go:

"
The SCALA open dialog uses a few conventions from Unix. Since
Unix and Windows have a shared background, actually the same conventions
were common in Windows 3.1 open dialogs too.

Once you learn these, it is easy to use.

Look at the layout - it is the same as for the Windows Open dialog.

At the top you see the folder to look in.
Below that you see a list. This looks unfamiliar because of the squre
brackets - but actually it is just a list of folders and files

Folders are shown in square brackets, so:

[scl] means the scl folder

The rest are all files.

The files are always shown with the extension such as .scl for scales
- which you can choose to hide in Windows dialogs.

The puzzling [..] is just a shortcut to take you to the parent folder
- you don't have this in the Windows Open - but it is convenient
to have.

So it is just the same layout again as the Windows Open - except that
folders are shown with square brackets instead of folder icons.

Click on a scale and you will see the name shown below, as with Windows.
You also see the description too, so that's a bonus!

Then click OK to open it. That's it.

To change to a folder such as the scl folder, double click on it,
again just as in Windows.

Use the scroll bar to scroll the list - again that is the same as in
Windows. Only thing you don't have is that you have a single column
list here, while the windows one is multi-column.

To show all the files beginning with a particular letter, enter
p*.scl in the file name field, and press Ok.

Again that is just as in Windows.

To resize the window, hover the mouse over the edge or the lower right
corner, then click and drag, just as for the Windows Open dialog.

So basically, apart from a few changes in the icons and appearance,
it is a conventional Windows dialog - for most purposes.

The windows Open dialog does have a fair number of extra features for power users,
such as the option to order files by name, date, size or type etc.
but you probably don't need them for the uses you make of it in
SCALA, while in the SCALA one you have the new description field for the scale
which you don't have in the conventional Open dialog.
"

Robert

--- In tuning@y..., "Robert Walker" <robertwalker@n...> wrote:

/tuning/topicId_39213.html#39213

> HI there,
>
> I've done an introduction to the SCALA open dialog for
> Windows users. I'm sure it is ninety percent appearance
> and familiarity that's the issue, and with a few things explained
one can
> use it as easily as the Windows one - in fact it is
> almost identical in the way it functions.
>

***Hi Robert!

Thanks for this contribution, but actually the problem was more a
*physical* one. The interface really wasn't working adequately to
bring in the files... It wouldn't change directories and stay in one
place. Otherwise, it is, indeed, very similar to the Windows
interface.

I just tried it again, though, and I notice that there has been great
improvement. Manuel says he was working on it, so maybe this is the
result. I had no trouble loading files in this time.

So now there are a *couple* of methods!

Thanks again!

Joseph