MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - iLiad Multiple X apps/windows simultaneously

jharker · 10-16-2007, 01:53 PM

You read my mind! I've been thinking about this kind of mod for a couple of months. It's why I did all that work on figuring out how the contentLister reads the hardware buttons.

My ideal changes would be something like this:

First, change functionality. The only way to close a program would be the "escape" (staircase) key. The "books", "docs", "notes", and "news" buttons would NOT automatically close a program.
Change functionality of those file buttons. New functionality would work something like this. When you push the "books" button,
- If there are no books open, bring the contentLister to the top, in the Books directory (as normal).
- If there ARE books open, bring up the most recent book file in its viewer. Repeated presses of the book button cycle through the open book files.
- A LONG press of the book button brings a popup window listing all open books, which you can page through with the up/down arrows.

This way, you could have, say, a document and a notepad open, and switch to the document by pressing "docs" and back to the notepad by pressing "notes".

The problem with this is that the only way to change the functionality of those buttons, as far as I know, is to modify the contentLister. With no access to the contentLister source, the only other option is to replace the contentLister.

But replacing the contentLister would be a fairly major undertaking. If anyone's interested in working on it I'd love to collaborate. I haven't been able to make much of a start on my own.

The best bet would be to use a currently available file browser and modify it significantly. I've looked at using (among other things) Nautilus and matchbox-desktop, but the former is WAY too complicated with lots of dependencies, and the latter just got a complete rewrite and I don't understand it at all. Anyone know of a simple file browser / graphical shell that only depends on GTK?

10-16-2007, 01:53 PM	#12
jharker Developer Posts: 345 Karma: 3473 Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Brooklyn, NY, USA Device: iRex iLiad v1, Blackberry Tour, Kindle DX, iPad.	You read my mind! I've been thinking about this kind of mod for a couple of months. It's why I did all that work on figuring out how the contentLister reads the hardware buttons. My ideal changes would be something like this: First, change functionality. The only way to close a program would be the "escape" (staircase) key. The "books", "docs", "notes", and "news" buttons would NOT automatically close a program. Change functionality of those file buttons. New functionality would work something like this. When you push the "books" button, If there are no books open, bring the contentLister to the top, in the Books directory (as normal). If there ARE books open, bring up the most recent book file in its viewer. Repeated presses of the book button cycle through the open book files. A LONG press of the book button brings a popup window listing all open books, which you can page through with the up/down arrows. This way, you could have, say, a document and a notepad open, and switch to the document by pressing "docs" and back to the notepad by pressing "notes". The problem with this is that the only way to change the functionality of those buttons, as far as I know, is to modify the contentLister. With no access to the contentLister source, the only other option is to replace the contentLister. But replacing the contentLister would be a fairly major undertaking. If anyone's interested in working on it I'd love to collaborate. I haven't been able to make much of a start on my own. The best bet would be to use a currently available file browser and modify it significantly. I've looked at using (among other things) Nautilus and matchbox-desktop, but the former is WAY too complicated with lots of dependencies, and the latter just got a complete rewrite and I don't understand it at all. Anyone know of a simple file browser / graphical shell that only depends on GTK?