Re: propagate_key_event

[muppet <scott asofyet org>]

On Mar 8, 2005, at 5:43 AM, Grant McLean wrote:

> Can the propagate_key_event method in Gtk2::Window be used to feed a
> key-press to a window?

not really.  the point of propagate_key_event is to allow widget 
(container) implementations to say to its parent "i (nor any of my 
children) don't know how to handle this key, so why don't you have a 
go?"  that is, propagate an event up the widget chain starting at the 
focus widget.  you want to go *down* the chain.

now, somebody more intimate with gtk+ key handling should feel free to 
point out my mistake, but basically you're trying to close a dialog 
programmatically and there are much easier ways.


> The reason I'm trying to do this is I have a regression test which 
> activates a button which pops up the dialog.  The fact the the dialog 
> appears is good enough for me, but my test script stops at that point 
> waiting for the dialog to be closed.

We do this a lot in the gtk2-perl test suite.  the basic trick is to 
use a single-shot idle handler that cdoes your deferred actions.  for 
example:

   $dialog = create_a_big_hairy_dialog();
   Glib::Idle->add (sub { $dialog->response ('cancel');  FALSE });
   $response = $dialog->run;  # blocks with a main loop until the 
dialog gets a response
   is ($response, 'cancel');

there's a helper module called Gtk2::TestHelper that has a couple of 
interesting methods such as run_main, ok_idle, and is_idle, which wrap 
up some of the tedium of doing the above.  (these functions are new in 
1.080, iirc)


> I did achieve my aim by getting a handle on the dialog window, walking
> through the tree of child widgets to find the cancel button and then
> calling its 'clicked' method.  Although it did do the job, I get a
> series of errors like this printed out:

this works, but is no fun to do, and can be rather brittle -- while the 
API is frozen for compatibility reasons, the organization of the widget 
tree can change without notice.

--
If I lived in Teletubby Land, the homicide rate would be four.
  -- elysse