container(n) BLT Built-In Commands container(n)______________________________________________________________________________NAMEcontainer - Widget to contain a foreign window.
_________________________________________________________________SYNOPSIScontainer pathName ?options?
DESCRIPTION
The container widget lets you swallow another X11/Win32 toplevel or
embed an X11 window from a foreign application into your Tk applica‐
tion. The foreign window is reparented inside of the widget. You can
then place and arrange the container just as you would any Tk widget.
INTRODUCTION
Notebooks are a popular graphical paradigm. They allow you to organize
many windows in a single widget. For example, you might have an appli‐
cation the displays several X-Y graphs at the same time. Typically,
you can't pack the graphs into the same frame because they are too
large. The other alternative is to pack the graphs into several
toplevel widgets, allowing them to overlap on the screen. The problem
is that all the different toplevel windows clutter the screen and are
difficult to manage.
The container widget lets organize your application by displaying each
graph as a page in a folder of a notebook. Only one page is visible at
a time. When you click on a tab, the folder (graph) corresponding to
the tab is displayed in the container widget. The container also lets
you temporarily tear pages out of the notebook into a separate toplevel
widget, and put them back in the container later. For example, you
could compare two graphs side-by-side by tearing them out, and then
replace them when you are finished.
A container may contain an unlimited number of folders. If there are
too many tabs to view, you can arrange them as multiple tiers or scroll
the tabs. The container uses the conventional Tk scrollbar syntax, so
you can attach a scrollbar too.
EXAMPLE
You create a container widget with the container command.
# Create a new container
container .c
A new Tcl command .c is also created. This command can be used to
query and modify the container. For example, to change the default
borderwidth, you use the new command and the container's configure
operation.
# Change the default font.
.c configure -borderwidth 2
You can then add folders using the insert operation.
# Create a new folder "f1"
.c coinsert 0 "f1"
This inserts the new tab named "f1" into the container. The index 0
indicates location to insert the new tab. You can also use the index
end to append a tab to the end of the container. By default, the text
of the tab is the name of the tab. You can change this by configuring
the -text option.
# Change the label of "f1"
.ts tab configure "f1" -label "Tab #1"
The insert operation lets you add one or more folders at a time.
.ts insert end "f2" -label "Tab #2" "f3" "f4"
The tab on each folder contains a label. A label may display both an
image and a text string. You can reconfigure the tab's attributes
(foreground/background colors, font, rotation, etc) using the tab con‐
figure operation.
# Add an image to the label of "f1"
set image [image create photo -file stopsign.gif]
.ts tab configure "f1" -image $image
.ts tab configure "f2" -rotate 90
Each folder may contain an embedded widget to represent its contents.
The widget to be embedded must be a child of the container widget.
Using the -window option, you specify the name of widget to be embed‐
ded. But don't pack the widget, the container takes care of placing
and arranging the widget for you.
graph .ts.graph
.ts tab configure "f1" -window ".ts.graph" \
-fill both -padx 0.25i -pady 0.25i
The size of the folder is determined the sizes of the Tk widgets embed‐
ded inside each folder. The folder will be as wide as the widest wid‐
get in any folder. The tallest determines the height. You can use the
tab's -pagewidth and -pageheight options override this.
Other options control how the widget appears in the folder. The -fill
option says that you wish to have the widget stretch to fill the avail‐
able space in the folder.
.ts tab configure "f1" -fill both -padx 0.25i -pady 0.25i
Now when you click the left mouse button on "f1", the graph will be
displayed in the folder. It will be automatically hidden when another
folder is selected. If you click on the right mouse button, the embed‐
ded widget will be moved into a toplevel widget of its own. Clicking
again on the right mouse button puts it back into the folder.
If you want to share a page between two different folders, the -command
option lets you specify a Tcl command to be invoked whenever the folder
is selected. You can reset the -window option for the tab whenever
it's clicked.
.ts tab configure "f2" -command {
.ts tab configure "f2" -window ".ts.graph"
}
.ts tab configure "f1" -command {
.ts tab configure "f1" -window ".ts.graph"
}
If you have many folders, you may wish to stack tabs in multiple tiers.
The container's -tiers option requests a maximum number of tiers. The
default is one tier.
.ts configure -tiers 2
If the tabs can fit in less tiers, the widget will use that many.
Whenever there are more tabs than can be displayed in the maximum num‐
ber of tiers, the container will automatically let you scroll the tabs.
You can even attach a scrollbar to the container.
.ts configure -scrollcommand { .sbar set } -scrollincrement 20
.sbar configure -orient horizontal -command { .ts view }
By default tabs are along the top of the container from left to right.
But tabs can be placed on any side of the container using the -side
option.
# Arrange tabs along the right side of the container.
.ts configure -side right -rotate 270
SYNTAX
The container command creates a new window using the pathName argument
and makes it into a container widget.
container pathName ?option value?...
Additional options may be specified on the command line or in the
option database to configure aspects of the container such as its col‐
ors, font, text, and relief. The container command returns its path‐
Name argument. At the time this command is invoked, there must not
exist a window named pathName, but pathName's parent must exist.
When first created, a new container contains no tabs. Tabs are added
or deleted using widget operations described below. It is not necessary
for all the tabs to be displayed in the container window at once; com‐
mands described below may be used to change the view in the window.
Containers allow scrolling of tabs using the -scrollcommand option.
They also support scanning (see the scan operation). Tabs may be
arranged along any side of the container window using the -side option.
The size of the container window is determined the number of tiers of
tabs and the sizes of the Tk widgets embedded inside each folder. The
widest widget determines the width of the folder. The tallest deter‐
mines the height. If no folders contain an embedded widget, the size
is detemined solely by the size of the tabs.
You can override either dimension with the container's -width and
-height options.
CONTAINER OPERATIONS
All container operations are invoked by specifying the widget's path‐
name, the operation, and any arguments that pertain to that operation.
The general form is:
pathName operation ?arg arg ...?
Operation and the args determine the exact behavior of the command.
The following operations are available for container widgets:
pathName cget option
Returns the current value of the configuration option given by
option. Option may have any of the values accepted by the con‐
figure operation described below.
pathName configure ?option? ?value option value ...?
Query or modify the configuration options of the widget. If no
option is specified, returns a list describing all the available
options for pathName (see Tk_ConfigureInfo for information on
the format of this list). If option is specified with no value,
then the command returns a list describing the one named option
(this list will be identical to the corresponding sublist of the
value returned if no option is specified). If one or more
option-value pairs are specified, then the command modifies the
given widget option(s) to have the given value(s); in this case
the command returns an empty string. Option and value are
described below:
-background color
Sets the border color of the container.
-borderwidth pixels
Sets the width of the 3-D border around the outside edge
of the widget. The -relief option determines how the
border is to be drawn. The default is 2.
-command pattern
Specifies to search for a window whose WM_COMMAND prop‐
erty matches the given pattern (X11 only). If no win‐
dows, or more than one window, matches the pattern, an
error is generated. If pattern is the empty string, then
no command search is performed. The default is "".
-cursor cursor
Specifies the widget's cursor. The default cursor is "".
-height pixels
Specifies the requested height of widget. If pixels is
0, then the height is height the embedded window plus the
specified borderwidth. The default is 0.
-highlightbackground color
Sets the color to display in the traversal highlight
region when the container does not have the input focus.
-highlightcolor color
Sets the color to use for the traversal highlight rectan‐
gle that is drawn around the widget when it has the input
focus. The default is black.
-highlightthickness pixels
Sets the width of the highlight rectangle to draw around
the outside of the widget when it has the input focus.
Pixels is a non-negative value and may have any of the
forms acceptable to Tk_GetPixels. If the value is zero,
no focus highlight is drawn around the widget. The
default is 2.
-name pattern
Specifies to search for a window whose WM_NAME property
matches the given pattern (X11 only). If no windows, or
more than one window, matches the pattern, an error is
generated. If pattern is the empty string, then no name
search is performed. The default is "".
-relief relief
Specifies the 3-D effect for the container widget.
Relief specifies how the container should appear relative
to widget that it is packed into; for example, raised
means the container should appear to protrude. The
default is sunken.
-takefocus focus
Provides information used when moving the focus from win‐
dow to window via keyboard traversal (e.g., Tab and
Shift-Tab). If focus is 0, this means that this window
should be skipped entirely during keyboard traversal. 1
means that the this window should always receive the
input focus. An empty value means that the traversal
scripts decide whether to focus on the window. The
default is 1.
-width pixels
Specifies the requested width of the widget. If pixels
is 0, then the width is the width the embedded window and
the specified borderwidth. The default is 0.
-window id
Specifies the foreign embedded using its path or X window
id.
pathName find -command|-name pattern
Searches for all windows that match the given pattern. If the
-command switch is given, all windows whose WWM_COMMAND property
match pattern are returned in a list (X11 only). If the -name
switch is given, all windows whose WWM_NAME property match pat‐
tern are returned in a list. The list returned will contains
pairs of the window id and the matching property.
KEYWORDS
container, widget
BLT 2.5 container(n)
