Re: GtkComboBox design -- first draft

["Bryan W. Headley" <bwheadley earthlink net>]

> The point is that we want to have both menu-style and list-style in the
> same widget, with the same API. A style-property determines whether the
> menu-style or list-style will be used. Because of this we can't put the
> list-style combo in a derived class.

I don't know; that precludes the icon combo box that's in GtkExtra+. 
What you want to do is define the list compound widget (dialog), the 
menu-style compound widget, the grid of iconic buttons as factory 
objects; put together a well-defined API/behavior contract between the 
"dialog" widgets and the combobox manager. Then allow us to put together 
widgets that implement the combobox API and plug it as the dialog widget.

With that in mind, the same has the be considered for the Entry widget 
and the pulldown button.

1. My GtkMutant Combobox allows for multiple items to be selected, and 
pushed into the Entry as a flattened list, separated by commas. So entry 
validation, display, and lightlighting of items in the list differs.

2. If an iconic combobox (often used to select foreground/background 
colors), the "Entry" widget really is an iconic button.  But there's no 
reason to believe that you could not find a multiselect use case for images.

-oo-

Towards that end, I've been thinking of what a 3-D Entry widget would 
look like. The "tabbed notebook" is one, except for the size of tabs 
being prohibitive. The motif of somebody holding a deck of playing cards 
("pick a card; any card"). Or an Entry widget that resembles a tablet of 
paper; a heavy shadow on the right side appears; when you click on it, 
the "next" value appears. Sort of like thumbing through a book...

-oo-

The one thing that I want to do, however, is to have distinct and 
separate callback-handling responsibilities between the popup dialog, 
the "value" widget (currently the Entry, that contains the value(s) of 
what is selected), and the popup/down button, which is currently kept to 
the left of the Entry. The current widget events being blocked, others 
being synthesized, and the chain of responsibility a little blurred.




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Bryan W. Headley - bwheadley earthlink net