When I tried to apply the patch for the bug described at https://bugs.launchpad.net/mcclim/+bug/608280 , my text fields suddenly became read only. The default value of editable-p does not seem to be being propagated where it is needed, although specifying :editable-p t does work. My hacky fix is to change the editable-p to (editable-p t) in this bit: @@ -364,7 +366,8 @@ &key id client armed-callback disarmed-callback activation-gestures activate- callback - value value-changed-callback) + value value-changed-callback + editable-p) ;; Make an editor substrate object for the gadget. (let ((substrate (make-text-field-substrate object :id id :client client :armed-callback armed-callback David Lewis Research Fellow, Department of Computing Goldsmiths, University of London & Birmingham Conservatoire d.lewis@gold.ac.uk