Re: Perl/TK: how to set defaults for the whole script?

[kcott]

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);

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);
    ...
}

[perltux]

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.