

Configuration Viewer 1.0
========================

This is something I quickly threw together to allow GUI editing of
ACE_Configuration files.  I thought it would be useful and serve as a
better example of how to use ACE_Configuration.  I developed this under
Windows 2000, but it should easily port to any platform that wxWindows
supports (see http://www.wxwindows.org.).

==============
   Usage
==============
All functionality is delivered through the file menu and right mouse button
context menus.  The file menu lets you create the different types of
ACE_Configurations such as a transient heap, persistent heap or Win32
Registry heap.  A new persistent heap may be created, or an older one
may be opened.  The win32 registry will require you to enter the path
from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE that you want to open.  For example: "Software/TAO"
would set the Win32Registry's root to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/TAO.
Note that this quick implementation loads the entire tree, so if you
enter "Software" it may take a minute to load up - beware!  Next you
may import or export entries from a heap to an INI file using the
Import/Export file commands.

The right mouse button opens up a context menu in both the tree control
and the list control.
From the tree context menu, you can:
1) Create new keys (these hold name/value pairs)
2) Create new string values
3) Create new integer values
4) Delete a key (beware, everything beneath it will be removed as well)

From the list control context menu, you can:
1) Modify a the value of an entry
2) Delete the entry
3) Rename the entry

Known Bugs/Issues:
*) You cannot enter/edit binary types
*) Adding a new string/integer value with the same name as an existing
   entry will overwrite the existing entry without warning.  I think there
   is a memory leak that occurs as well.
*) You can add entries to the root key, but they will not be imported
   or exported.  I think this is by design and the GUI should prevent
   this.  I need to investigate this further.
*) The entire configuration file is loaded into the tree when it is opened.
   For large configurations, this may take a while.  A good improvement
   would be to load items as the user expands them.
*) At the time of this writing, there is a nasty bug in
   ACE_Configuration_Heap that has to do with changing the value
   of an existing entry.  I have submitted a patch to fix this, but
   it may not go in until 5.1.3 (current version is 5.1.2).  I strongly
   recommend that you get the patch/newer version!
*) Renaming of Keys is not supported.  This requires an enhancement to
   ACE_Configuration first.
*) No makefiles for other platforms exist, can you donate one?
*) This has only been tested for non MFC DLL builds of ACE, it
   should work fine in the other configurations, but I haven't tested it.

=============================================

This was developed using:
*) wxWindows 2.1.15
*) ACE 5.0.16 + My patch to fix a bug in ACE_Configuration_Heap
*) Windows 2000
*) MSVC 6.0 + SP3

If you have any questions or comments, please send me an email.  I really
enjoy hearing about others that find this contribution useful!

Chris Hafey
May 2, 2000
chris@stentorsoft.com

