Text and Dialog Widgets

Conclusions

Text-editing widgets of the major toolkits provide extensive facilities, so we should use these as much as possible in applications instead of trying to create new ones. A challenging application involves combining text with other types of data, such as drawings or images. Listing 7.2 (Parts 1–3) provides a simple solution. This is sufficient when there is room for the text, but not when text labels must be inserted around other displays. One solution is to use a minimal special text-entry function (for example the one in Listing 4.13) for the initial placement, then a regular text edit widget whenever text must be modified. Another solution is to create an entry form with each field corresponding to a line of text whose width is computed from available space in the drawing.

Dialog widgets can be adapted to many tasks: They provide a basic pop-up/pop-down mechanism, a container widget, and a set of standard buttons and callbacks. There is virtually no limit to the functionality that can be added to these.