Re: Making Glade created ComboBox behave like Gtk2::ComboBox->new_text?

[Daniel Kasak <dkasak nusconsulting com au>]

Martin Junius wrote:

> Dear list,
>
> in my application I'm using empty ComboBox'es created in Glade, which
> are later filled with option values from a database. If the Glade file
> contains an empty <property name="items" translatable="yes"> </property>
> (this happens if you type a space into the "Items" field in Glade), I
> can use append_text() to add the option values to the ComboBox. The
> ComboBox then seems to behave like one created with
> Gtk2::ComboBox->new_text.
>
> If the items property is missing (default in Glade), this doesn't work
> because then the CombBox model isn't initialized.
>
> If I use code similar to
>
>    my $model = new Gtk2::ListStore('Glib::String');
> ...
>    for ... {
>         $model->set($model->append, 0, ...);
>    }
>    $cbox->set_model($model);
>
> this doesn't work either, the cell renderers seem to be messed up. cbox
> is the Glade ComboBox widget.
You mean the 'ComboBox' from Gtk-2.2? If so, that's been depreciated for 
quite a while. What version of Gtk to do have? If you've got Gtk-2.4 or 
higher, you should use a 'ComboBoxEntry'. It allows you to use a 
Gtk2::ListStore ( as you're trying to do above ) to store values for 
your combo box. I think that's what your problem here is - you're trying 
to use an old ComboBox as a ComboBoxEntry.

> Any ideas? Basically, I want to convert the empty ComboBox to one, where
> I can just use append_text().
I wouldn't use that append_text method of getting values into the 
Combo's list. Gtk-2.4's ComboBoxEntry is the way to go, and use a loop 
as you have above to append ID / String pairs to the model. I call this 
little function to populate ComboBoxEntry models all over the place:

---

sub create_combomodel {
  
   # Returns a model for use in a GtkComboBoxEntry
     
   my ( $dbh, $sql, $fields ) = @_;
  
   my $liststore = Gtk2::ListStore->new(
                                           $fields->{id_def},
                                           $fields->{display_def}
                                       );
  
   my $sth = $dbh->prepare($sql);
   $sth->execute;
  
   my $iter;
  
   while (my $row = $sth->fetchrow_hashref) {
      
       $iter = $liststore->append;
       $liststore->set( $iter, 0, $row->{$fields->{id}}, 1, 
$row->{$fields->{display}} );
      
   }
  
   return $liststore;
  
}

---

I then do something like:

---

Example usage:
my $model = create_combomodel(
                                   $dbh,
                                   "select BusTypeID, BusinessType from 
BusinessTypes",
                                   {
                                      id          => "BusTypeID",
                                      id_def      => "Glib::Int",
                                      display     => "BusinessType",
                                      display_def => "Glib::String"
                                   }
                            );

$widget = $prospects->get_widget("BusinessTypes");
$widget->set_model($model);
$widget->set_text_column(1);

---

Also, if you're doing database forms, check out my projects at:
http://entropy.homelinux.org/axis_not_evil

--
Daniel Kasak
IT Developer
NUS Consulting Group
Level 5, 77 Pacific Highway
North Sydney, NSW, Australia 2060
T: (+61) 2 9922-7676 / F: (+61) 2 9922 7989
email: dkasak nusconsulting com au
website: http://www.nusconsulting.com.au