Thus spake Gary Krockover: > A few versions back, the selection dialog box switched from the Java style to > the default Windows selection dialog when prompted to select a file from you > r computer. The Java version "remembered" where you last selected from, the > Windows one does not. Can this be switched back? > > GJK >
The whole situation with file choosers in Java makes me want to pound nails into my eyes. People on Windows and Mac OS like their native file choosers, partly because they have system-specific whiz-bang features. Unfortunately, the Java wrappers for these file choosers lets us have access to only the features supported by *all* of the native dialogs, thus sticking us with the lowest common denominator in the API. This means that, among other things, we can't have multiple file selection in the native file choosers---aggravating, because we need it, and because the native file choosers on Windows and Mac OS *do* support it but the API doesn't expose that functionality. So we're in a hard spot here: Until Java file chooser support stops sucking, it doesn't seem possible to please people who like the Swing dialog behavior, people who like the native dialog behavior, and people (like me) who would like to use the same file chooser throughout VASSAL for UI consistency. So, the short answer is: Yes, it can be switched back, BUT it probably won't take more than a day for someone else to ask for it to be switched back to the way it is now. Usually this sort of situation indicates that there should be a preference setting so that users can pick what they want, but having a preference for what kind of file chooser to use seems a bit odd to me. The best solution---that Sun fixes the java.awt.FileDialog API---might happen eventually now that Sun's Java implementaiton is open-sourced, but I don't know when (or whether) to expect such a change. I'd love to hear suggestions on what to do about this problem, as I'm out of ideas now. -- J.
