RE: elisp: Text-based file-chooser

[Drew Adams]

> What I'm trying to do here is replace the GUI file selector 
> with a more general (and mouseless) text-mode hierarchical
> file-selector that I can use both in a GUI and at a text-only
> console. My lisp code often uses the GUI file selector to
> select files that I want to process in other
> ways besides editing, so I need its replacement to only return the
> filename and let me decide for myself what action to take.

So I guess you're saying that you do not want (necessarily) to visit the file,
you just want to read a file name.  But you do not want to use the "GUI file
selector", by which I suppose you mean a file-selection dialog box.  Is that it?

If all you want is to read a file name without using a dialog box, then just use
`read-file-name' with `use-file-dialog' bound to `t'.

(let ((use-file-dialog  t))
  (read-file-name ...)...)