Re: Making widgets visible outside their containing window

["Felix H. Dahlke" <fhd ubercode de>]

Thanks for your answers. I did fool around with a popup, but it would
also overlap other windows, transient or not. Furthermore, I need it to
move relative to the window if that is moved.

Maybe it's best if I tell you what I'm trying to do in particular:
I'm working on something like a tooltip. However, I don't think I can
use normal tooltips, since I need to position it manually (actually, I
need it to move out of the way if the mouse cursor approaches it).

A popup sounds like the right way to do this, but I need to somehow wire
the popup's movement to the window's movement. Is there an easy way to
do that?

On 07/13/2011 03:53 PM, Bill Czermak wrote:
> Maybe the answer to your question is simply "No"....  You are displaying
> stuff in your window
>
> Generally the windows manager decides where on the screen to put stuff,
> so you can either use your existing window and allow GTK to display
> things as it thinks fit, which may not be what you expect.  (Note the
> comments about gtk_fixed in the documentation)  or open a new top-level
> window set transient to the main window, which sometimes positions
> things where you expect.  However the window manager decides where to
> put the new window and with dual screens this can be interesting.
>
> Best approach might be to use a (possibly) modal dialog, which the user
> can move out the way if he needs to.  It this is not acceptable, then 
> your only choice is to display a complex widget on the main window,
> maybe with a close button to destroy it if apprpriate
>
> Rgds Bill
>
>
>
>
>
> On 13/07/11 06:57, Sam Spilsbury wrote:
> > 2011/7/13 Felix H. Dahlke<fhd ubercode de>:
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > I'm fairly new to GTK (using version 2.24), and I'm wondering if I can
> > > move a widget (partly) outside the area of a window and still have it
> > > displayed.
> > >
> > > Consider the following code, where I've tried to use a GtkFixed to
> > > position a label partly outside the window:
> > >
> > > ==========
> > > int main(int argc, char* argv[])
> > > {
> > >     gtk_init(&argc,&argv);
> > >
> > >     GtkWidget* window = gtk_window_new(GTK_WINDOW_TOPLEVEL);
> > >     gtk_window_set_default_size(GTK_WINDOW(window), 320, 240);
> > >     gtk_container_border_width(GTK_CONTAINER(window), 10);
> > >     gtk_widget_show(window);
> > >
> > >     GtkWidget* fixed = gtk_fixed_new();
> > >     gtk_widget_set_has_window(fixed, TRUE); // Doesn't help
> > >     gtk_container_add(GTK_CONTAINER(window), fixed);
> > >     gtk_widget_show(fixed);
> > >
> > >     GtkWidget* label = gtk_label_new("Hello World");
> > >     // y = 238 should position the label partly outside the window
> > >     gtk_fixed_put((GtkFixed*) fixed, label, 0, 238);
> > >     gtk_widget_show(label);
> > >
> > >     gtk_main();
> > >     return 0;
> > > }
> > > ==========
> > >
> > > This is how I want it to look:
> > >
> > > -----------------------
> > > |                     |
> > > |                     |
> > > |                     |
> > > |                     |
> > > |--------------       |
> > > -|            |--------
> > >   |            |
> > >   --------------
> > >
> > > And this is how it actually looks:
> > >
> > > -----------------------
> > > |                     |
> > > |                     |
> > > |                     |
> > > |--------------       |
> > > ||            |       |
> > > ||            |       |
> > > |--------------       |
> > > -----------------------
> > >
> > > As you can see from the comments, I already tried to use
> > > gtk_widget_set_has_window(fixed, TRUE), but it didn't do the
> > > trick. How can I do this?
> > I can't say I know Gtk+ in any high level of detail, but just using my
> > basic knowledge of X11 here, I'd say that gtk_widget_set_has_window
> > (fixed, TRUE); is probably only giving the widget a subwindow of the
> > toplevel window of your application and not another toplevel window in
> > and of itself
> >
> > If you wanted to have that part of your widget appearing outside of
> > the client window you'd need to create a new GtkWindow which is
> > override-redirect (I believe the way to do this is to specify
> > GTK_WINDOW_POPUP on creation) and set the WM_TRANSIENT_FOR hint to be
> > your client's application window. Then you can draw whatever you want
> > there and it will be outside of (albeit on top of) the application.
> >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > gtk-app-devel-list mailing list
> > > gtk-app-devel-list gnome org
> > > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtk-app-devel-list
> _______________________________________________
> gtk-app-devel-list mailing list
> gtk-app-devel-list gnome org
> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtk-app-devel-list