[fxruby-users] Intercepting and reviewing FXText messages, especially KEY_PRESS|SEL_INSERTED

[Jason Martin]

Hi All,

I am new to the list, and FXRuby, this being my first post. I have hit a 
little snag, I am futzing around with a texteditor and everything works 
fine, but I would like to add in a snippet like functionality, but I 
seem to be at a loss for how to do it.

How I imagine it would be done is.

I have created a Dispatcher class, this class handles most messages in 
the program, adding a new tab/editor, displaying x or why. What I would 
like to do is have my Dispatcher class intercept messages
to and from the FXText, and then perform some actions on the FXText. If 
someone presses the TAB key, I would want to intercept that, grab the 
text before the cursor, see if a snippet has been defined, if
so, add the text in, otherwise, send the TAB key to the FXText like 
normal and let it do it's thing.

Some code:

#dispatcher.rb
class Dispatcher
  def initialize(owner,sender,sel,event)
    puts "Dispatcher Called with: #{owner}, #{sender}, #{sel}, #{event}"
  end
end

#content_pane.rb
...
def add_buffer(name)
    FXHorizontalFrame.new(@tab_book, 
FRAME_THICK|FRAME_RAISED|LAYOUT_FILL_X|LAYOUT_FILL_Y) do |frame|
      @buffers << FXText.new(frame,:opts => TEXT_WORDWRAP|LAYOUT_FILL)
      @current_buffer = @buffers.last
      @current_buffer.setFocus
    end
end
...

Essentially, what I imagine is this:

#content_pane.rb
def add_buffer(name)
    ...
      #pseudo Code
        @buffers.last.connect(message) do |sender,sel,event|
          Dispatcher.new(self,sender,sel,event)
        end
      #end pseudo code
      ...
end
#dispatcher.rb
...
#pseudo code
  def handle_text_widget_message(sender,sel,event)
      if event.code == code_i_want then
          #do something here
      else
         send_message_to(sender,sel,event)
      end
  end
#end pseudocode
...

I may be completely off my rocker and doing things retarded, as I am 
mainly a webprogrammer, and very new to GUI programming and how it 
works, so if there is a better, or more standard way of doing it, please 
point it out to me, or reference documents that might help, anything 
will be greatly appreciated. While writing this, I realize that I can 
use SEL_KEYRELEASE and get the info I want, however, I would like to get 
it before insertion,a nd not have to handle determining key behavior for 
the widget, like backspace, and insert etc.

Many thanks in advance,
Jason