# FXTreeList clarification

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fxtreelist-clarification/138646>\
**Category:** FXRuby\
**Created:** [May 26, 2008, 10:58am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fxtreelist-clarification/138646 "2008-05-26T10:58:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![teena](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/9fc29f/32.png) [@teena](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/teena)\
**Post date:** [May 26, 2008, 10:58am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fxtreelist-clarification/138646/1 "2008-05-26T10:58:01Z")

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Hi,  
i’m pretty new to both ruby and fxruby, and im currently trying to work  
my way through writing my first program but i’ve run into a bit of a  
ditch trying to work out what i need. Let me elaborate.

I’m trying to make a program that will allow the user to create and  
manage a ‘visual’ database of (for example) a cd collection. I want the  
information inside the database to be in the form of a heirarchical list  
like FXTreeList and FXDirList objects are, however i’m stumped in  
relation to FXTreeList and FXDirList in the following ways:

How can i fill FXTreeList (or a more appropriate class of object) with  
the relevant data? I want to be able to navigate to a directory and have  
an instance of the tree list be created with only the relevant directory  
structure inside. I’ve made DirLists which give me access to my entire  
filesystem but i can’t figure out where to pass the location of the  
starting directory to.

I’m thinking perhaps a dirlist is simply an instance of that nature(tree  
list like navigation through entire filesystem), hence my looking into  
the treelist object…

How can i ‘save’ a TreeList? I followed a really good book “Create Lean  
Mean Guis with Ruby” and the tutorial makes use of YAML to store the  
state of the program (photos added to albums) for the next time the  
program starts? Firstly would i be able to use yaml to store these ‘tree  
lists’…?

and secondly what about offering the user the option to ‘save’ to a  
location on disk so that if something dictated the program had to be  
reinstalled they wouldn’t lose all their database data they so  
painstakingly added…?

I’ve been trawling the internet and re-reading the FXrRuby Rdoc online  
but i can’t seem to get my head round this particular information…

Any help whatsoever would be greatly appreciated, even if you want to  
just redirect me to somewhere i can read about this further would be  
fine…

i’ve looked through a few posts on this forum and it seems really  
friendly 🙂

Thanks in advance for being patient with a beginner…maybe one day i’ll  
be able to offer advice on this very forum myself 🙂

regards  
T.Kingswell