This is not necessarily the current version of this TIP.This is not necessarily the current version of this TIP.
| TIP: | 8 |
| Title: | Add winico support to the wm command on windows |
| Version: | $Id: 8.tip,v 1.1 2000/11/30 13:02:55 fellowsd Exp $ |
| Author: | Vince Darley <vince dot darley at eurobios dot com> |
| State: | Draft |
| Type: | Project |
| Tcl-Version: | 8.4.0 |
| Vote: | Pending |
| Created: | Monday, 06 November 2000 |
Add to wm the ability to do the windows-titlebar-icon manipulation that the winico extension currently provides, without the bugs noted in that extension.
Modify wm on Windows only to allow an optional -default argument.
wm iconbitmap .winpath ?-default? filename
And to allow filenames which end in .ico or .icr to be interpreted differently. Filenames with any other extension will be handled, as before, by the bitmap code (which will generally either do nothing, or throw an error, thus maintaining backwards compatibility).
The -default argument, if given, will change not the icon of the .winpath given, but rather the default icon for all windows in the current application for which no specific icon as been set.
A slightly different implementation already exists (Vince's titlebaricon patch), which fixes the basic "wrapper window" problems and should be easy enough to modify for a different syntax.
There have been many requests on news:comp.lang.tcl for this ability in the Tk core, and several bug reports filed against Winico, and this ability has been placed on the Tk 8.4 roadmap. http://dev.scriptics.com/software/tcltk/roadmap.tml
The choice of wm iconbitmap is suggested, because wm iconbitmap currently doesn't appear to do anything on Windows, yet is the obvious choice for the user trying to set the window's icon (e.g. many posts on news:comp.lang.tcl are actually asking why wm iconbitmap doesn't do anything).
In the future we may wish to extend wm iconbitmap on all platforms so that other image types can be accepted (e.g. .gif, .png). This proposal extends naturally to allow such future work.
Fix the core so that Winico can work properly as an extension.
My implementation as shown that this would require a couple of patches, and also the exporting of an additional obscure function into Tk's stub table (a function which would ensure that Tk's window manager is completely initialised). It would also not help the users posting to news:comp.lang.tcl asking "why doesn't wm iconbitmap do anything?"
This is platform specific and should go in an extension
See Alternatives above, also see the future suggestion above in which this kind of code can be usefully extended in a cross-platform way.
The -default flag is weird, and it means we ignore the window name
I agree, but please suggest a better alternative rather than just moaning. The command with the -default flag is IMHO more useful than the command without (for example it makes sure that Tk's built-in dialogs have the icon of your application). An alternative might be to use wm iconbitmap -default filename, but that involves more significant modifications of the semantics of wm. It might, however, be a good idea.
wm iconbitmap will still do nothing when given a bitmap
Yes, but there's that backwards compatibility issue. This should be properly documented with pointers to the use of .ico/.icr file formats. When or if proper support is added to Tk for .gif, .png or even Tk images as icons, this bug can be fixed. The purpose of this TIP is not to fix that bug, but to provide a better solution.
This document has been placed in the public domain.
This is not necessarily the current version of this TIP.