Re: looking for a widget like pd's number box

[Paul Davis <paul linuxaudiosystems com>]

On Mon, 2008-06-02 at 15:08 +0100, Iain * wrote:
> > I was hoping someone could help decide what I have to do to replicate the
> > number box in pd. As far as I can tell from the source, it is created from
> > scratch using tcl scripting commands. It consists of a number entry area and
> > looks very much like the GtkSpinButton, without the arrows on the side.  To
> > change the number with the mouse, you click on the number area and drag the
> > mouse upwards or downwards.  You can also shift-click for finer precision.
> 
> What is the problem with having the arrows on the side? From my
> dabblings in PD the arrows on lots of boxes doesn't look like it would
> affect the layout at all? It should be enough to just subclass the
> GtkSpinButton and add the drag ability to it, then you'd have the best
> of both worlds. Especially as you say you don't want to duplicate
> work, why start from scratch when the GtkSpinButton already does 90%
> of what you need?

screen real-estate is at a premium in most audio/music apps. if you have
lots of these value-adjusting widgets, the arrows take up useless space.
i got the idea for the "click box" from a column in electronic musician
about 7 years ago that pointed out that insisting that computer UIs for
things had to mimic h/w was silly - you don't *need* a value display
*and* a knob/button on a screen, because the adjustment can be done
directly *on* the value display.

--p