my %Scale_defaults = (
        -width        => 10,
        -length       => 200,
        -sliderlength => 16,
        -orient       => 'horizontal',
        -borderwidth  => 1,
        -cursor       => 'hand2',
        -showvalue    => 0
    );

# ...

my $s = $mainwindow->Scale(%Scale_defaults,
                           -showvalue => 1); # override a default
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Thanks, that sounds like a good solution to me!

Use a function.

sub build_scale {
    my $frame = shift;

    my $scale = $frame->Scale(
       -width        => '10',
       -length       => '200',
       -sliderlength => '16',
       -orient       => 'horizontal',
       -borderwidth  => '1',
       -cursor       => 'hand2',
       -showvalue    => '0'
    );

    return $scale;
}
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G'day perltux,

You can put all your default options in a hash.

my %default_scale_options = (
    -width        => '10',
    -length       => '200',
    -sliderlength => '16',
    -orient       => 'horizontal',
    -borderwidth  => '1',
    -cursor       => 'hand2',
    -showvalue    => '0'
);
...
my $scale1 = $parent->Scale(%default_scale_options);
...
my $scaleN = $parent->Scale(%default_scale_options);
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An alternative to this is to use an option database. You can set this up external to your script (e.g. with a .Xdefaults file) allowing access by multiple scripts; you can also use optionAdd(), and related methods, to handle options within a single script. See option for details.

Here's an example of usage extracted from one of my own scripts. configure_option_database() is called after MainWindow->new() but before any widgets are created.

sub configure_option_database {
    ...
    my $priority = 'startupFile'; # 40
    ...
    # Button
    $mw->optionAdd('*Button*borderWidth', 1, $priority);
    $mw->optionAdd('*Button*activeBorderWidth', 1, $priority);
    ...
    # Entry
    $mw->optionAdd('*Entry*background', '#ffffff', $priority);
    $mw->optionAdd('*Entry*borderWidth', 1, $priority);
    $mw->optionAdd('*Entry*cursor', 'xterm', $priority);
    ...
}
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Thanks, in this case I will use the hash solution, the options database solution looks interesting too, but is overkill in this case for my specific script.

... keep it in a variable ...

Not being quite as adventurous as choroba or kcott, I will often use a constant for something like this. The other alternative is a Readonly hash, but  Readonly imposes execution overhead that may be undesirable. The functional approach of stefbv is also nice.

use constant SCALE_DEFAULTS => qw(-width 10  -length 200  -etc 42);

my $s = $MW->Scale(SCALE_DEFAULTS, -override => 1, etc...);
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