Re: Multiple components container

[Michael Meeks <michael ximian com>]

Hi there,

On Wed, 2003-02-12 at 21:24, nshmyrev wrote:
> I need to write complicated container or maybe shell for controls. The
>  goal is organize tree of controls, capable to add and remove tree
>  nodes from shell and from controls. Each tree node must merge some ui
>  elements in toolbar and menu and show/hide/disable view (control) in
>  common box/dock widget. I also need EventSource to emit signals of
>  tree state.

	Sounds interesting - what program is this for and what are the
requirements ?

> I choose to use Bonobo_UI to do this. It seems that it is useful to
>  contain this tree as part of BonoboEngine xml tree. I write one more
>  BonoboUISync, which works with this part of tree, and write
>  MyWidget:BonoboWidget.
>
> Something like 
> <view>
>   <item name = "Foo" ior="....." />
> </view>

	Sounds nice - that is how I originally designed this to be used; I'd be
most pleased to see a screenshot / XML dump of your work - I'm
impressed.

> First question: This part of bonoboui is private. I ougth to define
>  BONOBO_UI_PRIVATE in my code. But some useful code is hidden, for
>  example, bonobo_ui_xml. Is there any plans to hide all this or make
>  this code public in the future releases? 

	Its hidden to save me from having to support a large API/ABI than is
probably necessary. It's also not clear what's happening with this code
- since the Gtk+ people need to re-write their underlying toolbar
widget, and then we'll have to re-factor ours to follow that.

> Second question: what about this design. Maybe, I sould use another
>  way. I see that there are many objects attached to UINode. Is there
>  any way to use them?

	Presumably you need to include the node definition, and poke at that.
The 'NodeInfo' structure is (currently) tied to bonobo-ui-engine.c's
implementation ( though shared with bonobo-ui-xml.c ). Can you not work
within the confines of the BonoboUISync API ? or is that too limiting
for you ?

> Third question: It seems that BonoboUI is highly widget-oriented. For
> example, is it true, that i should add BonoboControl to BonoboWidget
> to merge associated BonoboUIComponent or a should use this with
> something else

	Yes - currently it is highly widget oriented. One way to avoid that
would be to simply do all your work in bonobo_ui_sync_update_root
(perhaps) - since there will be no widget hierarchy to walk / compare
for you for the tree.

> Bonobo_UIContainer_setObject(window_container, "", control, &ev);

	What path are you setting that at ? and why ?

> Last question: What about Bonobo Container widget. Will bonoboui
> include one sometime?

	Container widget ? to contain what ?

	Hope that helps,

	Regards,

		Michael.

-- 
 mmeeks gnu org  <><, Pseudo Engineer, itinerant idiot