Kepler

This would likely be an issue with the Ptolemy Query widget in ptolemy.gui.

I tend not to see this because most error dialogs should be thrown with
an Exception and the dialog should have a "Show Stack Trace" button.
The error message is selectable in the Stack Trace Window.

However, if someone is invoking GraphicalMessageHandler directly, then
the text is probably not selectable.

Ah, I never noticed you could get the text from the Stack Trace.

I'm lowering the priority of this and changing it to an enhancement because
the code works as expected.
I agree that it would be nice if the dialog text was selectable, retyping
an error message is a waste of human effort.

ptolemy.gui.GraphicalMessageHandler extends
ptolemy.gui.UndeferredGraphicalMessageHandler which uses JOptionPane.
It appears to be a limitation of JOptionPane that the text is not selectable.

See http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/components/dialog.html
for JOptionPane examples,

However, all is not lost. JOptionPane has a message argument and if that
argument is a String, then a JLabel is created.

http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/javax/swing/JOptionPane.html says:

--start--
message
A descriptive message to be placed in the dialog box. In the most common usage, message is just a String or String constant. However, the type of this parameter is actually Object. Its interpretation depends on its type:

Object[]
        An array of objects is interpreted as a series of messages (one per object) arranged in a vertical stack. The interpretation is recursive -- each object in the array is interpreted according to its type. 
    Component
        The Component is displayed in the dialog. 
    Icon
        The Icon is wrapped in a JLabel and displayed in the dialog. 
    others
        The object is converted to a String by calling its toString method. The result is wrapped in a JLabel and displayed. 
--end--

So instead of passing a String, I created a method that creates a JTextArea
that looks like a JLabel, but is selectable. I found code at
http://www.rgagnon.com/javadetails/java-0296.html
that got me most of the way there.

So, I modified ptolemy.gui.UndeferredGraphicalMessageHandler so that we
use a JTextField, which looks like a JLabel, but is selectable.
As a fallback, we will return a String if there is a problem.

Fixed!

It turns out that this fix causes the dialogs to be very wide because
the JTextArea is one line, whereas JLabel wraps to fit the window.
I backed out my changes to ptolemy.gui.UndeferredGraphicalMessageHandler.
Thus, I'm reopening this bug.

Using a JTextField does not wrap text, so we use a JTextArea.
I'm closing this one, but let's keep an eye out for impossibly wide dialogs.

Now I'm seeing a frame that is too small to accommodate the text and the buttons - they are chopped off.
The text is wrapping, however!
Anyone else?

I'm using MessageHandler.error(String, throwable)

In 2009-08-11, Ben wrote:

Now I'm seeing a frame that is too small to accommodate the text and the
buttons - they are chopped off.
The text is wrapping, however!
Anyone else?

I'm using MessageHandler.error(String, throwable)

I can't reproduce this.
This can probably be closed. I'm assigning it to Ben pending his approval.

If Christopher is happy, I am too. (Not even sure when/where I saw the small dialog those 3 years ago)

Original Bugzilla ID was 4147