3. OO-Browser Options

This chapter explains how to set a variety of OO-Browser configuration options. A number of sections call for adding a line or two of variable settings to your personal initialization file in order to make a permanent change to an OO-Browser option. If you use InfoDock, the preferred initialization file is `~/.infodock'. If you use Emacs or XEmacs, use `~/.emacs' instead.

3.1 Using an External Viewer or Editor

The OO-Browser lets you select your desired editor and viewer programs when you use a multi-windowed display. By default, both of these tasks are handled by your InfoDock or Emacs editor so that the browser will work when run on dumb terminals. If you choose an external editor or viewer for use under a window system, InfoDock or Emacs will still automatically be used whenever you invoke the browser from a dumb terminal.

The br-editor-cmd variable is used to set the command that invokes the editor whenever source code is to be displayed by the OO-Browser. Arguments to the command should be placed in the variables named br-ed[1-9], with one string argument per variable. Unused variables should have the value `nil'. Bear in mind that the command must generate a new window under your window system. For example, the vi editor under UNIX does not create its own window, it runs within the window in which it is created. Under X one would create a new xterm window and then invoke vi. The command line would be, `xterm -e vi'. The settings in your personal initialization file would look like this.

(setq br-editor-cmd "xterm" br-ed1 "-e" br-ed2 "vi"
      br-ed3 nil br-ed4 nil br-ed5 nil
      br-ed6 nil br-ed7 nil br-ed8 nil br-ed9 nil)

If you want to view classes in a read-only fashion with an external viewer, set the following br-viewer-cmd and br-vw[1-9] variables in the same way as for the editor variables above.

For example, to use `xmore', an X-compatible version of `more', as your viewer, use the following settings (assuming all the br-vw variables are already `nil').

(setq br-viewer-cmd "xmore")

The OO-Browser now includes an OO-Browser menu item, Options/Use-Vi-as-Editor, that enables the use of `vi' as the editor and `more' as the viewer. Simply turn this option on to get this behavior. Follow the prior instructions to make such a setting permanent.

3.2 Toggling Inherited Features Display

By default, when the OO-Browser lists features of a class, it shows both the ones lexically defined within the class source text and the ones inherited from ancestor classes. Each feature is listed below the class in which it is originally defined, for clarity. Sometimes it is helpful to see only the lexically defined features of a class. In such cases, the menu item, Options/Show-Inherited-Features, toggles this setting. If you want this off by default, you may add the following line to a personal initialization file.

(setq br-inherited-features-flag nil)

3.3 Adding Features to a Graphical View

See section 2.22 Browsing Graphically.

3.4 Keeping Viewed Classes

The br-keep-viewed-classes flag is turned off by default, which means that each class buffer read in by the browser will be deleted when the next one is browsed. If it is set to `t', all viewed classes are left around for later selection.

In typical use, the burden of having to manage all viewed classes is greater than the benefit of leaving them in memory. This is why the flag is off by default. If you choose to leave them around, the class buffer menu can be used to delete buffers when you want to trim down the number of them. See section 2.14 Using the Mouse, for details on this technique.

The value of the br-keep-viewed-classes flag may be toggled with the (br-toggle-keep-viewed) command or with the menu item, Options/Keep-Viewed-Classes.

3.5 Inverting Ancestor Trees

Ancestor trees are normally shown to emphasize how the trees branch out from the current class, with the most distant ancestors shown as leaves of the ancestry tree. If you prefer that all listing displays reflect the class inheritance structure, with children below parents, you may invert the ancestry tree listings by adding the following line to your personal initialization file.

(setq br-invert-ancestors t)

This will make the most distant ancestors appear as roots of the trees and parents (the nearest ancestors) appear as leaves, since they inherit from the higher level ancestors. This is a global OO-Browser option, it affects all Environments.

This document was generated by XEmacs shared group account on December, 19 2009 using texi2html 1.65.