Re: Z-ordering

[Robert Pearce <rob bdt-home demon co uk>]

On Tue, 08 Nov 2011 20:02:27 -0700 D.R.Evans wrote:
> 
> I'm not quite following you (specifically I'm not sure what you mean by
> "primary widget", nor the bit about widgets being the same size: in the
> example I gave of what I need to do, widget A is not the same size as any
> other widget, so I'm not sure how your procedure applies to the problem at
> hand).

It seems to me that your requirements are not clear enough to any of us
for this discussion to prove fruitful.

Your pictures and description suggest that you want something to "pop
up" over the top ("in front") of the main collection of widgets, and
then to disappear ("go back behind") when it's done with. Further you
want this pop-up to have full control while it's there. That set of
requirements is called a "modal dialog window" in GUI terms, and Gtk
supports them fine with the caveat that the modality (being the only
(inter)active part of the application) relies on the window manager to
behave right.

If you want all your widgets to overlap, and the user to be able to
bring one of them to the front, then you are asking for "Multiple
Document Interface", which is a Windows3 feature that Gtk does not
support (and even Windows is deprecating it to a large extent). The Gtk
way to deal with this is to put each "document" (i.e. each
independently raiseable widget) in a separate Gtk::Window and leave the
control of Z-order to the window manager, which the end user has
presumably chosen and configured to her liking.

I struggle to think of any other reason you'd want widgets to overlap
in a rational, usable GUI.

Regards,
Rob