Re: [gtk-list] Panner widget?

[Havoc Pennington <hp redhat com>]

harry eaton <haceaton@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu> writes:
> I'm the developer of a fairly extensive application that currently is
> based on the Athena widgets.  Presently, it uses a panner/porthole widget,
> and I really believe that this is the best thing for this application.
> 
> In the documentation, I don't see anything like a panner widget.  Is there
> an equivalent widget to the panner widget (sort of like a 2-D scrollbar)
> in GTK?  If not, is there one under construction?
>

I think ggv (GNOME ghostview) has this widget in it. You might check
out those sources.
 
> I'm considering porting my application to GTK+, mainly because it looks
> like it will reduce the amount of effort I have to spend writing
> user-interface code.  If there is no panner-like widget, I'd be in the
> ironic situation of having to begin by writing a new widget for GTK+!  It
> actually doesn't look like it would be difficult to do, but I am concerned
> that it would take considerable time before most people would have access
> to a "next version" GTK+, that included any new widget I might write.  My
> guess is that it will be asking a lot of application users to upgrade
> their libraries.  Any advice about how long before the "mess" associated
> with updates settles down, and how quickly a new widget (once written and
> proven) can find it's way into a released (not CVS) version?
> 

You don't need the widget in GTK to use it in your app, just do a
cut-and-paste, submit the widget for inclusion in GTK, and if it ever
gets in GTK delete your cut-and-paste copy in your app.

Writing custom widgets is actually the recommended way to write many GTK
application features, and clearly most of these custom widgets won't
make their way back to GTK.

> Lastly, my application makes extensive use of various Xt facilites,
> particularly in the use of resource files.  gtkrc files seem to provide a
> quite limited subset of such capabilites (e.g. accelerator keys, but not
> translation overides for mouse button presses, nor abitrary 
> application-specific resource types). Any good ideas for doing these sorts
> of things?
> 

gnome-config, libxml, that sort of thing allow you to store config
options on disk. You can also still call Xrm* functions if you want
for your own custom settings, though GTK widgets don't pay any
attention to resource files.

(No one start the "GTK should have used Xt" thread please :-)

Havoc