Formatting Gtk Pages

[gnubbs]

I am currently working on a simple app that will allow a user to select between a list of configurations for another program. I am currently use Gtk for the frontend and am having some issues. I would like to have a list of checkboxes in my window that looks like:

[] 1    Configuration 1           Description
[] 2    Another Configuration     Another Description
[] 102  Third configuration       Third description

I would like to have the entire line be selectable, not the just the checkbox. This leaves me trying something like:

my $check_string = sprintf("%$configuration_maxs %$name_maxs %$descrip
+tion_maxs", 
   $configuration, $name, $description");

$checkbox = new Gtk::CheckButton( $check_string );

Where $configuration_max, $name_max, and $description_max contain the maximum length of these strings.

This doesn't get the alignment right because the font in the Gtk theme may not be fixed width (almost definately won't be fixed width.) So, masters of window layout, please let me in on your secrets before the other programmers break me down into just another motif programmer.

[Courage]

for Tk it appears that simple tab character makes alignment.

Dont know whether this works for Gtk however, and how to configure tab settings in case you know their positions.

[Aristotle]

Please don't use Gtk for new code. It is unmaintained, has never been complete, and binds a library that is obsolete. Have a look at Gtk2 instead.

What you're trying to do is quite simple with Gtk2::Ex::Simple::List.

my $slist = Gtk2::Ex::Simple::List->new (
    'Setting'       => 'bool',
    'Configuration' => 'int',
    'Name'          => 'text',
    'Description'   => 'text',
);

@{$slist->{data}} = (
    [ 0,   1, 'Configuration 1',       'Description' ],
    [ 0,   2, 'Another Configuration', 'Another Description' ],
    [ 0, 102, 'Third configuration',   'Third description' ],
);

[gnubbs]

I agree that using Gtk is not ideal, but unfortunately I have no control over the modules installed on this system and Gtk is the only GUI toolkit installed. I will have to talk to the OS administrator for our systems to see if I can add it during the install of this script. Thanks everyone for the help. gnubbs

[gnubbs]

Just to provide some closure to this post...

I have ended up using Gtk2. It requires my install script for this script to also install perl-glib and perl-gtk2 but that in the end is not as hard as getting this functionality in Gtk (not Gtk2). So, it will be Gtk2 and a list store.

Thanks again for your help.

[paulbort]

OK, my Perl skills are all non-UI, but back in the dark days I programmed in a Very Basic language that was just about all UI.

The solution there would be to hook the click event on the checkboxes, and then fiddle the background color of all of the fields on that row. Viola, you've highlighted the selection.

I'm pretty sure the same method would work in Tk, too.

[gnubbs]

Yeah. This is where I am going if I don't hear a simpler solution. Hopefully someone will respond with something simple and brilliant... Thanks for the responses.

[meredith]

Gtk seems to have a grid widget that supports rendering cells as toggle-buttons. Would that help you out? Run 'gtk-demo' on your system, and double-click "List Store" on the left.