Messages from Usenet group comp.lang.idl-pvwave, compiled by Paulo Penteado
I am running IDL V-3.5 (soon to go to V-3.6.1) on a DEC 3000-400AXP under OSF 1.3. I am not very pleased with the appearance of exclusive button widgets in that it is difficult to tell which button is selected. I have managed to select a color scheme which gives sufficient highlight to the active buttons so that they can be differentiated reasonably well. However, this was obtained by altering the Window Foreground and Background colors under the Window Options menu of the mwm window manager. So now, all my other windows have "odd" color schemes (I like white text on a black background in my DECterm windows). Is there a way to specify the colors used in IDL widgets independently of the colors used by the windowing system in general? Perhaps I can set something in my .Xdefaults file? Ideally (ie. in some future release of IDL) it would be nice to be able to specify the 3 button colors for both the selected and unselected buttons (perhaps the insensitive ones as well). Not knowing anything about X-windows, I have no idea if this is even possible. I am not suggesting that every button in a widget be able to support a separate color scheme rather that widgets (maybe by selecting the colors when creating the root base widget) be able to present a consistent and controlled color appearance when used by different users or on different platforms. Any help, comments, or general discussion of this matter would be of interest to me and perhaps others on the net. As an afterthought, it would be nice to get the list and meaning of ALL the IDL (Widget) resources that can be specified via the .Xdefaults file. TIA, -- Joseph M. Zawodny (KO4LW) NASA Langley Research Center Internet: zawodny@arbd0.larc.nasa.gov MS-475, Hampton VA, 23681-0001 TCP/IP: ko4lw@ko4lw.ampr.org Packet: ko4lw@n4hog.va.usa
In article <32d945$a23@reznor.larc.nasa.gov>, Joseph M Zawodny <zawodny@arbd0.larc.nasa.gov> wrote: > I am running IDL V-3.5 (soon to go to V-3.6.1) on a DEC ... > windows). Is there a way to specify the colors used in IDL widgets > independently of the colors used by the windowing system in general? > Perhaps I can set something in my .Xdefaults file? > ... > Any help, comments, or general discussion of this matter would > be of interest to me and perhaps others on the net. As an afterthought, > it would be nice to get the list and meaning of ALL the IDL (Widget) > resources that can be specified via the .Xdefaults file. > Hi Joseph - This may interest you. From the "whatsnew.txt" file in the notes subdirectory of the IDL 3.6 distribution: RESOURCE_NAME KEYWORD TO WIDGET CREATION FUNCTIONS -------------------------------------------------- The RESOUCE_NAME keyword is an X Windows only keyword to the widget creation functions (e.g., WIDGET_BASE, WIDGET_BUTTON, etc.) that allows you to assign Motif resource names to individual widgets. Once a widget has been assigned a resource name, you can change many aspects of its appearance and behavior such as its color and accelerator key. See the documentation for WIDGET_BASE in the IDL Reference Guide for details. This ought to let you muck with the colors and resources of your widgets to your heart's content. email replies to schienle@igate1.hac.com until 8015@... stops bouncing. Mike Schienle Hughes Santa Barbara Research Center 8015@sbsun0010.sbrc.hac.com 75 Coromar Drive, M/S B28/87 Voice: (805)562-7466 Fax: (805)562-7881 Goleta, CA 93117