Re: Wrapping gtk2:buttons

[Chris Debenham <chris adebenham com>]

2009/6/10 Grant McLean <grant mclean net nz>:
> On Wed, 2009-06-10 at 15:07 +1000, Chris Debenham wrote:
> > I need to display 40 buttons in an area which may be resized and the
> > text in the buttons is dynamic.
> > As such I can't really determine ahead of time how many buttons will
> > fit on a row.
> > Is there any way to display a bunch of Gtk2::Button widgets and have
> > it wrap around to fit the available space?
>
> I do mean this in a caring way, but that sounds like a *horrible* user
> interface :-)

No worries, Normally I'd agree but it does make sense for this
particular use case.
It is to display a list of bible books as buttons - these buttons are
then replaced with buttons for the chapters, then verses.
It is used for quickly looking up verses (without having to type) See
http://www.adebenham.com/lyricue/screenshot.html for a screenshot
showing part of it

> Someone else may have alternate suggestions, but I can think of a couple
> of ways to achieve what you're asking for.
>
> * the Gtk::TextView widget is normally used to display word-wrapped
> Âtext but you can add widgets (like buttons) into the textview using
> Âthe add_child_at_anchor() method

Ugly - but may work

> * the Gtk::Layout can be used to position widgets at absolute
> Âcoordinates, so by hooking into signals when the window is resized,
> Âyou could adjust the position of the button widgets to reflow them
> Âas required

This would get complicated/slow as it has to be done for up to 150
buttons (for chapters with lots of verses)

> I think the Gtk::IconView widget does the kind of layout flowing you're
> talking about, but I'm not sure it can be coerced into displaying
> buttons.


I found a reference to how iconview implements CellLayout so a custom
CellRenderer should be possible - If I can control the sizing this is
probably the best way

> I do wonder though whether that many options would be better implemented
> as menus rather than buttons.

Normally yes - but not in this context

> Good luck
> Grant

Thanks for the pointers - now I just have to go and try them out :-)

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