Re: GtkTreeView and fixed_height mode

[Kristian Rietveld <kris gtk org>]

On Wed, Feb 07, 2007 at 12:58:18PM +0100, Emmanuel Briot wrote:
> The assertion above checks that all columns are also using a fixed sizing. The 
> comment doesn't really indicate *why* this was necessary though, and that is 
> change compared to older versions of gtk+ 2.4.

Note that this change has been in gtktreeview.c since the first
fixed_height_mode commit.  The requirement for FIXED columns in fixed
height mode has been in there since 2.3.x and has not changed over
time.

> I suppose changing their code to using fixed sizing for columns is doable, but 
> what would they lose by doing that (is manual resizing an orthogonal issue 
> for instance ?)

Which other resizing mode would you want to use for your column?
AUTOSIZE doesn't make any sense, the point of fixed height mode is to
speed up GtkTreeView by not measuring every row.  Widths of cells will
also not be measured, so GtkTreeView cannot auto size columns in this
case.

Then there is GROW_ONLY; as cells are not remeasured on model changes,
using this mode does not make much sense either.

The only one left is FIXED.  GtkTreeView usually defaults to the size of
the column headers (determined by the length of the column titles) for
this.  You can also set a good size yourself.  And the user is still able
to resize columns when you enable the resizable properties of the columns.

Fixed height mode is really limited and we have always discouraged to
use it.  However, for really large data sets there is not really another
option.

I hope this clears things up a bit.


regards,

-kris.