Re: dealing with column data

[Evan Lavelle <eml riverside-machines com>]

Carl B. Constantine wrote:
> I'm writing an app that uses GtkTreeView widget to display data.
> However. for two of these GtkTreeViews, the data isn't really row based,
> but column based. It's more like a spread sheet and I don't think GTK
> has anything akin to what I want.
>
> Essentially, I want to be able to select an individual cell in a table.
> Get the data, right-click to popup a menu and perform some function.
> GtkTreeView isn't geared for this. I don't want to select an entire row.
>
> Does anyone have any hints on how to accomplish this?

Have you looked at <http://gtkextra.sourceforge.net/>? They've got a 
spreadsheet-like widget that may do the job. I haven't tried it.

> On another note, I've been pooring over the documentation for
> GtkTreeView in particular but other widgets as well and it astounds me
> (as a veteran technical writer for Metrowerks a while back) the lack of
> documentation. I don't mean/want to be harsh, but how can the developers
> of Gtk+ expect developers to write apps when there is such a lack of
> docs on many of the widget classes and methods? Let me give a practical
> example from the GtkTreeView class and one other widget:
>
> http://developer.gnome.org/doc/API/2.0/gtk/GtkTreeViewColumn.html
>
> The description for GtkTreeView column is incomplete. It says:
>
> "The GtkTreeViewColumn object is a visible column in a GtkTreeView
> widget. It determines the geometry, type"
>
> and that's as far as it gets.
>
> http://developer.gnome.org/doc/API/2.0/gtk/GtkTreeView.html#GtkTreeView-select-cursor-row
>
> here, arg1 and returns are blank. What are they supposed to be? When
> should this be called?
>
> I really think there needs to be some more docs. The Gtk 2.0 tutorial is
> missing docs on several widgets. it would be nice to get these filled
> in.
>
> Just my $0.02 worth.

I sympathise. What would be really useful would be a distributed 
"document it as you find it" system. If you find something that's not in 
the docs, then you write a few lines and submit it, and future users 
could browse the database and wouldn't have to waste time finding out 
how something really works. This would have saved me hours.

Evan