[comp.mail.mh] nested folders and Xmh

irvin@northstar26 (Tim Irvin) (06/26/91)

We are having a problem with folders that are nested 2 or more levels.  If
they are created using Xmh then the lower level folders show up fine, until
Xmh is restarted and then they go into hiding.  The only way to access
them at that point is to start-up Xmh with the -initial switch.  The top
and first nesting show up fine, it is just below that point that this
shows up (or better yet doesn't show up).  

Is this a bug, a feature, or a configuration problem?

----------------------+--------------------------------------------------------
Tim Irvin             | Internet:        irvin@northstar.Dartmouth.EDU
Systems Administrator | US/Campus Snail: Kiewit Computation Center/HB 6028
Project NORTHSTAR     |                  Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755
Dartmouth College     | Ma Bell:         (603) 646-2814
----------------------+--------------------------------------------------------

converse@EXPO.LCS.MIT.EDU (Donna Converse) (06/27/91)

> We are having a problem with folders that are nested 2 or more levels.  If
> they are created using Xmh then the lower level folders show up fine, until
> Xmh is restarted and then they go into hiding.  The only way to access
> them at that point is to start-up Xmh with the -initial switch.  The top
> and first nesting show up fine, it is just below that point that this
> shows up (or better yet doesn't show up).  
> 
> Is this a bug, a feature, or a configuration problem?

You are correct, xmh doesn't support subfolders of subfolders.
It's not particularly a feature, and it's not a configuration problem.

The Athena Simple Menu widget, which is used for the menu of subfolders, does
not support cascading, so cascading menus cannot be used to represent more
layers of subfolders, unless a different menu widget is used.

The bug is that xmh is inconsistent in that it allows you to create 
additional layers of subfolders, but doesn't represent them when xmh is
restarted.  Either the creation of subfolders of subfolders could be 
disallowed, or xmh could be changed to represent subfolders of subfolders
as it does when the subfolders are first created, as menu entries that
appear as "a/b", for example.   

It can take a long time to build menus in that case -- currently, at the 
first time that a folder menu is popped up, the folder directory is read 
to determine which subfolders exist.  If we add the reading of subfolder 
directories at n levels, the menu can take way too long to pop up.  So the 
fix should consider some caching of information across invocations, and 
background processing (Xt work procs).


Donna Converse