Re: Patch to Gtk?Pane

[Owen Taylor <otaylor gtk org>]

Patrice Fortier <Patrice.Fortier@aquarel.fr> writes:

> >  - With the old panes, the user can tell that it is a paned
> >    window, because it:
> >  
> >      a) has a groove
> >      b) has the handle
> >      c) The cursor changes when it is over the handle.
> 
> The "new" behaviour is the "windows" behaviour.

So? ;-)

Just because Windows does it that way, doesn't mean that it is
good design...

> >  - With your changes, the area the user can click on is very narrow.
> >    I have to try two or three times before I click successfully.
> 
> > What I was planning to do was to leave the handle there, but allow the
> > user to drag everywhere on the gutter as well. I wanted to change the
> > cursor when the pointer was over the gutter so the user know that they
> > could drag there.
> > 
> > (Changing the cursor is a little bit tricky. It can be done
> >  two ways:
> > 
> >  1) Create another window for the gutter, which has the alternate
> >     cursor set.
> 
> Maybe for the gutter and the grip (do you expect to change your cursor
> between gutter and grip?).
> This will allow a wider drag area too. The gutter will just be a bit
> more complicated (draw_area - or clrear_area ? - and draw_line instead
> of just the draw_line).

What you are missing is that the sides of the "bar" in the Paned
widgets, are not drawn by the Paned widget, but by its children.
(Normally, Frames). The handle/grip actually overlaps the child
widget allocations. So using a single widget for the gutter and
the grip doesn't work out. (The child widgets can only draw into
the main window)

> >  2) Track the position of the pointer (and Enter/Leave events), and
> >     change the cursor accordingly.
> 
> it should be time consuming. at least more than a 2nd window in pane IMHO.
>
> > The first method is simpler, but it restricts the area with the 
> > changed cursor to the size of the gutter, while the second
> > method is more flexible.)
> 
> To the size of the _window_ in which you draw the gutter.

Which is restricted by the way things are drawn to the size of
the gutter.

(Yes, it could be changed so that the paned window widget
drew the sunken boxes itself, but that is 

 a) Less flexible
 b) Backwards incompatible
 c) More complicated
)

Regards,
                                        Owen