Tablelist is a library package for Tcl/Tk version 8.0 or higher, written in pure Tcl/Tk code. It contains:
A tablelist widget is a multi-column listbox. The width of each column
can be dynamic (i.e., just large enough to hold all its elements, including the
header) or static (specified in characters or pixels). The columns are,
per default, resizable. The alignment of each column can be specified as
left, right, or center.
The columns, rows, and cells can be configured individually. Several
of the global and column-specific options refer to the headers, implemented as
label widgets. For instance, the -labelcommand option
specifies a Tcl command to be invoked when mouse button 1 is released over a
label. The most common value of this option is tablelist::sortByColumn, which sorts
the items based on the respective column.
Interactive editing of the elements of a tablelist widget can be enabled for individual cells and for entire columns. All the validation facilities available for entry widgets are supported during the editing process. In addition, a rich set of keyboard bindings is provided for a comfortable navigation between the editable cells.
The Tcl command corresponding to a tablelist widget is very similar to the
one associated with a normal listbox. There are column-, row-, and
cell-specific counterparts of the configure and cget
subcommands (columnconfigure, rowconfigure,
cellconfigure, ...). They can be used, among others, to
insert images into the cells and the header labels. The
index, nearest, and see command options
refer to the rows, but similar subcommands are provided for the columns and
cells (columnindex, cellindex, ...). The items
can be sorted with the sort and sortbycolumn command
options.
The bindings defined for the body of a tablelist widget make it behave just
like a normal listbox. This includes the support for the virtual event
<<ListboxSelect>>, when using Tk version 8.1 or
higher. In addition, version 2.3 or higher of the widget callback package
Wcb (written in pure Tcl/Tk code as well) can be used to define callbacks for
the activate, selection set, and
selection clear commands. The download location
of Wcb is
Tablelist is available for free download from the same URL as Wcb. The
distribution file is tablelist3.3.tar.gz for UNIX and
tablelist3_3.zip for Windows. These files contain the same
information, except for the additional carriage return character preceding the
linefeed at the end of each line in the text files for Windows.
Install the package as a subdirectory of one of the directories given by the
auto_path variable. For example, you can install it as a
directory at the same level as the Tcl and Tk script libraries. The
locations of these library directories are given by the
tcl_library and tk_library variables, respectively.
To install Tablelist on UNIX, cd to the desired
directory and unpack the distribution file tablelist3.3.tar.gz:
gunzip -c tablelist3.3.tar.gz | tar -xf -
This command will create a directory named tablelist3.3, with
the subdirectories demos, doc, and
scripts.
On Windows, use WinZip or some other program capable of unpacking the
distribution file tablelist3_3.zip into the directory
tablelist3.3, with the subdirectories demos,
doc, and scripts.
Note that the file tablelistEdit.tcl in the
scripts directory is only needed for applications making use of
interactive cell editing. Similarly, the file
tablelistMove.tcl in the same directory is only needed for
applications invoking the move or movecolumn command.
Next, you should check the exact version number of your Tcl/Tk distribution,
given by the tcl_patchLevel and tk_patchLevel
variables. If you are using Tcl/Tk version 8.2.X, 8.3.0 - 8.3.2, or
8.4a1, then you should upgrade your Tcl/Tk distribution to a higher
release. This is because a bug in these Tcl versions (fixed in Tcl 8.3.3
and 8.4a2) causes excessive memory use when calling info
exists on non-existent array elements, and Tablelist makes a lot
of invocations of this command.
If for some reason you cannot upgrade your Tcl/Tk version, then you should
execute the Tcl script repair.tcl in the directory
scripts. This script makes backup copies of several files
contained in this directory, and then creates new versions of them by replacing
all invocations of info exists for array elements with
a call to the helper procedure arrElemExists. The patched
files work with all Tcl/Tk releases starting with 8.0, but the original ones
have a much better performance.
To be able to access the commands and variables defined in the package Tablelist, your scripts must contain one of the lines
package require Tablelist package require tablelist
You can use either one of the above two statements because the file
tablelist.tcl contains both lines
package provide Tablelist ... package provide tablelist ...
You are free to remove one of these two lines from
tablelist.tcl if you want to prevent the package from making
itself known under two different names. Of course, by doing so you
restrict the argument of package require to a single
name. Notice that the examples below use the
statement package require Tablelist.
Since the package Tablelist is implemented in its own namespace called
tablelist, you must either invoke the
namespace import tablelist::pattern ?tablelist::pattern ...?
command to import the procedures you need, or use qualified names
like tablelist::tablelist. In the examples below we have
chosen the latter approach.
To access Tablelist variables, you must use qualified
names. There are only two Tablelist variables that are designed to be
accessed outside the namespace tablelist:
tablelist::version holds the current version
number of the Tablelist package.
tablelist::library holds the location of the
Tablelist installation directory.
The file config.tcl in the demos directory
contains a procedure demo::displayConfig that displays the
configuration options of an arbitrary widget in a tablelist contained in a
newly created top-level widget. This procedure can prove to be quite
useful during interactive GUI development. To test it, start
wish and evaluate the file by using the
source command as follows:
wish was started in the demos directory then
it is sufficient to enter
source config.tcl
wish was started in some other directory then you can use
the tablelist::library variable to find the location of the
file:
package require Tablelist source [file join $tablelist::library demos config.tcl]
In both cases, the script will print the following message to
stdout:
To display the configuration options of an arbitrary widget, enter
demo::displayConfig <widgetName>
It is assumed that the Tcl command associated with the widget specified by
<widgetName> has a configure subcommand which,
when invoked without any argument, returns a list describing all of the
available configuration options for the widget, in the common format known from
the standard Tk widgets. The demo::displayConfig procedure
inserts the items of this list into a scrolled tablelist with 5 dynamic-width
columns and interactive sort capability, and returns the name of the newly
created tablelist widget:
package require Tablelist
namespace eval demo {
#
# Get the current windowing system ("x11", "win32", "classic", or "aqua")
#
variable winSys
if {[catch {tk windowingsystem} winSys] != 0} {
switch $::tcl_platform(platform) {
unix { set winSys x11 }
windows { set winSys win32 }
macintosh { set winSys classic }
}
}
#
# Add some entries to the Tk option database for the following
# widget hierarchy within a top-level widget of the class DemoTop:
#
# Name Class
# -----------------------------
# tf Frame
# tbl Tabellist
# vsb, hsb Scrollbar
# bf Frame
# b1, b2, b3 Button
#
if {[string compare $winSys x11] == 0} {
option add *DemoTop*Font "Helvetica -12"
} else {
option add *DemoTop.tf.borderWidth 2
option add *DemoTop.tf.relief sunken
option add *DemoTop.tf.tbl.borderWidth 0
option add *DemoTop.tf.tbl.highlightThickness 0
}
if {[string compare $winSys classic] == 0} {
option add *DemoTop*Background #dedede
}
option add *DemoTop.tf.tbl.activeStyle frame
option add *DemoTop.tf.tbl.background gray96
option add *DemoTop.tf.tbl.stripeBackground #e0e8f0
option add *DemoTop.tf.tbl*selectBackground navy
option add *DemoTop.tf.tbl*selectForeground white
option add *DemoTop.tf.tbl*Entry.background LightYellow
option add *DemoTop.tf.tbl.setGrid yes
option add *DemoTop.bf.Button.width 10
}
#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# demo::displayConfig
#
# Displays the configuration options of the widget w in a tablelist widget
# contained in a newly created top-level widget. Returns the name of the
# tablelist widget.
#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
proc demo::displayConfig w {
if {![winfo exists $w]} {
bell
tk_messageBox -icon error -message "Bad window path name \"$w\"" \
-type ok
return ""
}
#
# Create a top-level widget of the class DemoTop
#
set top .configTop
for {set n 2} {[winfo exists $top]} {incr n} {
set top .configTop$n
}
toplevel $top -class DemoTop
wm title $top "Configuration Options of the [winfo class $w] Widget \"$w\""
#
# Create a scrolled tablelist widget with 5 dynamic-width
# columns and interactive sort capability within the top-level
#
set tf $top.tf
frame $tf
set tbl $tf.tbl
set vsb $tf.vsb
set hsb $tf.hsb
tablelist::tablelist $tbl \
-columns {0 "Command-Line Name"
0 "Database/Alias Name"
0 "Database Class"
0 "Default Value"
0 "Current Value"} \
-labelcommand tablelist::sortByColumn -sortcommand demo::compareAsSet \
-editendcommand demo::applyValue -height 15 -width 100 -stretch all \
-xscrollcommand [list $hsb set] -yscrollcommand [list $vsb set]
$tbl columnconfigure end -editable yes
scrollbar $vsb -orient vertical -command [list $tbl yview]
scrollbar $hsb -orient horizontal -command [list $tbl xview]
#
# Create three buttons within a frame child of the top-level widget
#
set bf $top.bf
frame $bf
set b1 $bf.b1
set b2 $bf.b2
set b3 $bf.b3
button $b1 -text "Refresh" -command [list demo::putConfig $w $tbl]
button $b2 -text "Sort as set" -command [list $tbl sort]
button $b3 -text "Close" -command [list destroy $top]
#
# Manage the widgets
#
. . .
#
# Fill the tablelist with the configuration options of the given widget
#
putConfig $w $tbl
return $tbl
}
The procedure invokes the tablelist::tablelist command to create a
tablelist widget. The value of the -columns option passed to this
command specifies the widths, titles, and alignments of the 5 columns.
The width of each column is given as 0, specifying that the
column's width is to be made just large enough to hold all the elements in the
column, including its title, which is the string following the width. We
have omitted the alignment specifications (which can optionally follow the
titles), because the columns shall all be left-justified.
The command tablelist::sortByColumn, specified as
the value of the -labelcommand option, will be
invoked whenever mouse button 1 is released over one of the labels. This
command sorts the items based on the column corresponding to that label, in the
right order, by invoking the sortbycolumn subcommand of the
Tcl command associated with the tablelist widget.
As seen from the creation of the button displaying the text
"Sort as set", the items will also be sorted by
invoking the sort
subcommand. This makes it necessary to specify a command to be used for
the comparison of the items, as the value of the -sortcommand option. In our
example this is the demo::compareAsSet procedure shown below.
The -editendcommand option
specifies the command to be invoked automatically whenever the interactive
editing of a cell's contents is finished and the final contents of the
temporary embedded entry widget used for the editing is different from its
original one. Per default, the elements of a tablelist widget can only be
edited programmatically, but we enable the interactive editing for the cells of
the last column with the aid of the -editable column configuration
option.
By specifying the value all for the -stretch configuration option we make
sure that all of the columns will be stretched to eliminate the blank space
that might appear at the right of the table.
Besides the options given on the command line, our tablelist widget will
automatically inherit the ones contained in the Tk option database entries
specified in the namespace initialization preceding the
demo::displayConfig procedure. The database name
activeStyle corresponds to the -activestyle configuration
option; its value frame makes the active item appear surrounded
with a thin frame. The database name stripeBackground
corresponds to the -stripebackground
configuration option. According to this entry, every other row of the
tablelist widget will be displayed in the background color
#e0e8f0, which improves the readability of the items and gives the
widget a nice appearance.
Due to the * character preceding the
selectBackground and selectForeground options, the
selection will have navy background and white
foreground not only in the tablelist widget itself, but also in the entry
widget used for interactive cell editing.
We fill the tablelist by invoking the demo::putConfig procedure
discussed below. The same script is associated with the
Refresh button, as the value of its -command
configuration option. This procedure is implemented as follows:
#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# demo::putConfig
#
# Outputs the configuration options of the widget w into the tablelist widget
# tbl.
#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
proc demo::putConfig {w tbl} {
if {![winfo exists $w]} {
bell
tk_messageBox -icon error -message "Bad window path name \"$w\"" \
-parent [winfo toplevel $tbl] -type ok
return ""
}
#
# Display the configuration options of w in the tablelist widget tbl
#
$tbl delete 0 end
foreach configSet [$w configure] {
#
# Insert the list configSet into the tablelist widget
#
$tbl insert end $configSet
if {[llength $configSet] == 2} {
$tbl rowconfigure end -foreground gray50 -selectforeground gray75
$tbl cellconfigure end -editable no
} else {
#
# Change the colors of the first and last cell of the row
# if the current value is different from the default one
#
set default [lindex $configSet 3]
set current [lindex $configSet 4]
if {[string compare $default $current] != 0} {
foreach col {0 4} {
$tbl cellconfigure end,$col \
-foreground red -selectforeground yellow
}
}
}
}
$tbl sortbycolumn 0
$tbl attrib widget $w
}
After deleting the current items of the tablelist widget tbl,
the procedure inserts the items of the list returned by the
configure subcommand of the Tcl command associated with the widget
w. For each option that is merely an abbreviated form of
some other one, we use the rowconfigure tablelist
subcommand to change the normal and selection foreground colors of the item
just appended, and we disable the interactive editing in the last inserted cell
by using the -editable cell configuration
option. The cellconfigure tablelist
operation is also invoked for each real option whose current value is different
from the default one, to change the values of the -foreground and
-selectforeground options of the cells no. 0 and 4, containing the
command-line name of the option and its current value.
Each tablelist widget may have any number of private attributes,
which can be set and retrieved with the aid of the attrib subcommand of the Tcl command
corresponding to the widget. The demo::putConfig procedure
sets the widget attribute to the name of the widget whose options
are displayed in the tablelist.
The implementation of the comparison command
demo::compareAsSet mentioned above is quite simple:
#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# demo::compareAsSet
#
# Compares two items of a tablelist widget used to display the configuration
# options of an arbitrary widget. The item in which the current value is
# different from the default one is considered to be less than the other; if
# both items fulfil this condition or its negation then string comparison is
# applied to the two option names.
#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
proc demo::compareAsSet {item1 item2} {
foreach {opt1 dbName1 dbClass1 default1 current1} $item1 \
{opt2 dbName2 dbClass2 default2 current2} $item2 {
set changed1 [expr {[string compare $default1 $current1] != 0}]
set changed2 [expr {[string compare $default2 $current2] != 0}]
if {$changed1 == $changed2} {
return [string compare $opt1 $opt2]
} elseif {$changed1} {
return -1
} else {
return 1
}
}
}
Finally, here is the implementation of the demo::applyValue
procedure, specified as the value of the -editendcommand option:
#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# demo::applyValue
#
# Applies the new value of the configuraton option contained in the given row
# of the tablelist widget tbl to the widget whose options are displayed in it,
# and updates the colors of the first and last cell of the row.
#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
proc demo::applyValue {tbl row col text} {
#
# Try to apply the new value of the option contained in
# the given row to the widget whose options are displayed
# in the tablelist; reject the value if the attempt fails
#
set w [$tbl attrib widget]
set opt [$tbl cellcget $row,0 -text]
if {[catch {$w configure $opt $text} result] != 0} {
bell
tk_messageBox -icon error -message $result \
-parent [winfo toplevel $tbl] -type ok
$tbl rejectinput
return ""
}
#
# Replace the new option value with its canonical form and
# update the colors of the first and last cell of the row
#
set text [$w cget $opt]
set default [$tbl cellcget $row,3 -text]
if {[string compare $default $text] == 0} {
foreach col {0 4} {
$tbl cellconfigure $row,$col \
-foreground "" -selectforeground ""
}
} else {
foreach col {0 4} {
$tbl cellconfigure $row,$col \
-foreground red -selectforeground yellow
}
}
return $text
}
The procedure retrieves the name of the widget whose options are displayed
in the tablelist, as the value of its widget attribute, and
invokes the cellcget
tablelist subcommand to get the name of the option specified in the first cell
of the row whose last element was just edited. Next, it tries to apply
the new value of the option to the widget, and invokes the rejectinput subcommand if the
attempt fails. Otherwise it replaces the new option value with its
canonical form and updates the normal and selection foreground colors of the
cells no. 0 and 4. The canonical form of the option value is given by the
cget subcommand of the Tcl command associated with that
widget. For example, a boolean value will always be replaced with
1 or 0, even if the entry contains the string
yes or no. The procedure returns this canonical
option value, thus making sure that the latter will become the new contents of
the cell that was just edited.
The file browse.tcl in the demos directory
contains a procedure demo::displayChildren that displays
information about the children of an arbitrary widget in a tablelist contained
in a newly created top-level widget. To test it, start wish
and evaluate the file by using the source command, in a similar
way as in the case of the previous example.
The script will print the following message to stdout:
To display information about the children of an arbitrary widget, enter
demo::displayChildren <widgetName>
The demo::displayChildren command inserts some data of the
children of the widget specified by <widgetName> into a
vertically scrolled tablelist with 9 dynamic-width columns and interactive sort
capability, and returns the name of the newly created tablelist widget.
By double-clicking on an item or invoking the first entry of a pop-up menu
within the body of the tablelist, you can display the data of the children of
the widget corresponding to the selected item, and with the second menu entry
you can display its configuration options (see the previous example for
details). To go one level up, click on the Parent button.
package require Tablelist
namespace eval demo {
variable dir [file join $tablelist::library demos]
#
# Create two images, needed in the procedure putChildren
#
variable leafImg [image create bitmap -file [file join $dir leaf.bmp] \
-background coral -foreground gray50]
variable compImg [image create bitmap -file [file join $dir comp.bmp] \
-background yellow -foreground gray50]
}
source [file join $demo::dir config.tcl]
#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# demo::displayChildren
#
# Displays information on the children of the widget w in a tablelist widget
# contained in a newly created top-level widget. Returns the name of the
# tablelist widget.
#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
proc demo::displayChildren w {
if {![winfo exists $w]} {
bell
tk_messageBox -icon error -message "Bad window path name \"$w\"" \
-type ok
return ""
}
#
# Create a top-level widget of the class DemoTop
#
set top .browseTop
for {set n 2} {[winfo exists $top]} {incr n} {
set top .browseTop$n
}
toplevel $top -class DemoTop
#
# Create a vertically scrolled tablelist widget with 9 dynamic-width
# columns and interactive sort capability within the top-level
#
set tf $top.tf
frame $tf
set tbl $tf.tbl
set vsb $tf.vsb
tablelist::tablelist $tbl \
-columns {0 "Path Name" left
0 "Class" left
0 "X" right
0 "Y" right
0 "Width" right
0 "Height" right
0 "Mapped" center
0 "Viewable" center
0 "Manager" left} \
-labelcommand demo::labelCmd -yscrollcommand [list $vsb set] -width 0
foreach col {2 3 4 5} {
$tbl columnconfigure $col -sortmode integer
}
foreach col {6 7} {
$tbl columnconfigure $col -formatcommand demo::formatBoolean
}
scrollbar $vsb -orient vertical -command [list $tbl yview]
#
# When displaying the information about the children of any
# ancestor of the label widgets, the widths of some of the
# labels and thus also the widths and x coordinates of some
# children may change. For this reason, make sure the items
# will be updated after any change in the sizes of the labels
#
foreach l [$tbl labels] {
bind $l <Configure> [list demo::updateItemsDelayed $tbl]
}
bind $tbl <Configure> [list demo::updateItemsDelayed $tbl]
#
# Create a pop-up menu with two command entries; bind the script
# associated with its first entry to the <Double-1> event, too
#
set menu $top.menu
menu $menu -tearoff no
$menu add command -label "Display children" \
-command [list demo::putChildrenOfSelWidget $tbl]
$menu add command -label "Display config" \
-command [list demo::dispConfigOfSelWidget $tbl]
set body [$tbl bodypath]
bind $body <<Button3>> [bind TablelistBody <Button-1>]
bind $body <<Button3>> +[bind TablelistBody <ButtonRelease-1>]
bind $body <<Button3>> +[list demo::postPopupMenu $top %X %Y]
bind $body <Double-1> [list demo::putChildrenOfSelWidget $tbl]
#
# Create three buttons within a frame child of the top-level widget
#
set bf $top.bf
frame $bf
set b1 $bf.b1
set b2 $bf.b2
set b3 $bf.b3
button $b1 -text "Refresh"
button $b2 -text "Parent"
button $b3 -text "Close" -command [list destroy $top]
#
# Manage the widgets
#
. . .
#
# Fill the tablelist with the data of the given widget's children
#
putChildren $w $tbl
return $tbl
}
The procedure invokes the tablelist::tablelist command to create a
tablelist widget. The value of the -columns option passed to this
command specifies the widths, titles, and alignments of the 9 columns.
The width of each column is given as 0, specifying that the
column's width is to be made just large enough to hold all the elements in the
column, including its title, which is the string following the width.
Each of the titles is followed by an alignment, which indicates how to justify
both the elements and the title of the respective column.
The command demo::labelCmd, specified as the value of the
-labelcommand
option, will be invoked whenever mouse button 1 is released over one of the
labels. We will discuss this procedure a little later.
We specify the value 0 for the widget's -width option, meaning that the
tablelist's width shall be made just large enough to hold all its columns.
After creating the tablelist widget, we make sure that the elements of its
columns 2, 3, 4, and 5 (displaying the x and y coordinates as well as the
widths and heights of the children) will be compared as integers when sorting
the items based on one of these columns. We do this with the aid of the
columnconfigure
tablelist operation.
The same columnconfigure subcommand enables us to specify that,
when displaying the elements of columns 6 and 7 (having the titles
"Mapped" and "Viewable", respectively), the boolean
values 1 and 0 will be replaced with the strings
"yes" and "no", returned by the
demo::formatBoolean command shown below.
After creating the vertical scrollbar, we iterate over the elements of the
list containing the path names of all header labels of the tablelist widget,
returned by the labels
subcommand of the Tcl command corresponding to the widget. For each
element of the list, we bind the procedure
demo::updateItemsDelayed to the <Configure>
event. In this way we make sure the procedure will be invoked whenever
the header label indicated by that list element changes size.
The four invocations of the bind command following the
creation of the pop-up menu use the path name of the tablelist's body, returned
by the bodypath
subcommand of the Tcl command associated with the tablelist widget. Both
the <<Button3>> virtual event
(used in the first three bind commands) and the TablelistBody binding tag (used
in the first binding script) are created by the Tablelist package. The
first three bind commands make sure that a
<<Button3>> virtual event will select and activate the
nearest item and will post a pop-up menu with two command entries that refer to
the widget described by that item.
We fill the tablelist by invoking the demo::putChildren
procedure, implemented as follows:
#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# demo::putChildren
#
# Outputs the data of the children of the widget w into the tablelist widget
# tbl.
#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
proc demo::putChildren {w tbl} {
#
# The following check is necessary because this procedure
# is also invoked by the "Refresh" and "Parent" buttons
#
if {![winfo exists $w]} {
. . .
}
set top [winfo toplevel $tbl]
wm title $top "Children of the [winfo class $w] Widget \"$w\""
#
# Display the data of the children of the
# widget w in the tablelist widget tbl
#
variable leafImg
variable compImg
$tbl resetsortinfo
$tbl delete 0 end
foreach c [winfo children $w] {
#
# Insert the data of the current child into the tablelist widget
#
set item {}
lappend item $c [winfo class $c] [winfo x $c] [winfo y $c] \
[winfo width $c] [winfo height $c] [winfo ismapped $c] \
[winfo viewable $c] [winfo manager $c]
$tbl insert end $item
#
# Insert an image into the first cell of the row
#
if {[llength [winfo children $c]] == 0} {
$tbl cellconfigure end,0 -image $leafImg
} else {
$tbl cellconfigure end,0 -image $compImg
}
}
#
# Configure the "Refresh" and "Parent" buttons
#
$top.bf.b1 configure -command [list demo::putChildren $w $tbl]
set b2 $top.bf.b2
set p [winfo parent $w]
if {[string compare $p ""] == 0} {
$b2 configure -state disabled
} else {
$b2 configure -state normal -command [list demo::putChildren $p $tbl]
}
}
After resetting the sorting information by invoking the resetsortinfo subcommand and
deleting the current items of the tablelist widget tbl, the
procedure iterates over the children of the specified widget and inserts the
items built from some data retrieved by using the winfo
command. For each child, it invokes the cellconfigure tablelist
operation to set the value of the -image option of the first cell,
containing the path name of the child. In this way, the procedure inserts
the image $leafImg or $compImg into the first cell,
depending upon whether the child in question is a leaf or a composite
widget. Remember that both images were created outside this procedure,
within the initialization of the demo namespace.
The demo::formatBoolean and demo::labelCmd
procedures mentioned above are trivial:
#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# demo::formatBoolean
#
# Returns "yes" or "no", according to the specified boolean value.
#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
proc demo::formatBoolean val {
if {$val} {
return yes
} else {
return no
}
}
#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# demo::labelCmd
#
# Sorts the contents of the tablelist widget tbl by its col'th column and makes
# sure the items will be updated 500 ms later (because one of the items might
# refer to the canvas containing the arrow that displays the sorting order).
#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
proc demo::labelCmd {tbl col} {
tablelist::sortByColumn $tbl $col
updateItemsDelayed $tbl
}
The command tablelist::sortByColumn sorts the items
of the tablelist widget by the specified column in the right order, by invoking
the sortbycolumn subcommand of the
Tcl command associated with the tablelist widget.
The implementation of the demo::updateItemsDelayed command,
invoked in this procedure and already encountered in the
demo::displayChildren procedure above, is quite simple:
#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# demo::updateItemsDelayed
#
# Arranges for the items of the tablelist widget tbl to be updated 500 ms later.
#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
proc demo::updateItemsDelayed tbl {
#
# Schedule the demo::updateItems command for execution
# 500 ms later, but only if it is not yet pending
#
if {[string compare [$tbl attrib afterId] ""] == 0} {
$tbl attrib afterId [after 500 [list demo::updateItems $tbl]]
}
}
#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# demo::updateItems
#
# Updates the items of the tablelist widget tbl.
#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
proc demo::updateItems tbl {
#
# Reset the tablelist's "afterId" attribute
#
$tbl attrib afterId ""
#
# Update the items
#
set rowCount [$tbl size]
for {set row 0} {$row < $rowCount} {incr row} {
set c [$tbl cellcget $row,0 -text]
if {![winfo exists $c]} {
continue
}
set item {}
lappend item $c [winfo class $c] [winfo x $c] [winfo y $c] \
[winfo width $c] [winfo height $c] [winfo ismapped $c] \
[winfo viewable $c] [winfo manager $c]
$tbl rowconfigure $row -text $item
}
}
As already mentioned in the previous example, each tablelist widget may have
any number of private attributes, which can be set and retrieved with the aid
of the attrib subcommand
of the Tcl command corresponding to the widget. The afterId
attribute is set by the demo::updateItemsDelayed procedure when
sheduling the demo::updateItems command for execution 500 ms
later, but only if its value is an empty string. For this reason, the
demo::updateItems procedure resets this attribute. It also
makes use of the cellcget tablelist subcommand to get
the path names contained in the first cell of each row, and updates the data
of the children with the aid of the rowconfigure subcommand.
The remaining three procedures are also straight-forward. For example,
the demo::putChildrenOfSelWidget command shown below makes use of
the curselection
subcommand to get the index of the selected row. More precisely,
curselection returns a list, but in our case this list will have
exactly one element, hence it can be used directly as the first component of a
cell index.
#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# demo::putChildrenOfSelWidget
#
# Outputs the data of the children of the selected widget into the tablelist
# widget tbl.
#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
proc demo::putChildrenOfSelWidget tbl {
set w [$tbl cellcget [$tbl curselection],0 -text]
if {![winfo exists $w]} {
bell
tk_messageBox -icon error -message "Bad window path name \"$w\"" \
-parent [winfo toplevel $tbl] -type ok
return ""
}
if {[llength [winfo children $w]] == 0} {
bell
} else {
putChildren $w $tbl
}
}
The script styles.tcl in the demos directory
demonstrates some ways of making tablelist widgets smarter and improving the
readability of their items. It creates 6 tablelist widgets, shown in the
following figure:
Here is the relevant code segment:
#
# Create, configure, and populate 6 tablelist widgets
#
frame .f
for {set n 0} { $n < 6} {incr n} {
set tbl .f.tbl$n
tablelist::tablelist $tbl \
-columns {0 "Label 0" 0 "Label 1" 0 "Label 2" 0 "Label 3"} \
-background gray96 -selectbackground navy -selectforeground white \
-height 4 -width 40 -stretch all
switch $n {
1 { ;# top right tablelist
$tbl configure -showseparators yes
}
2 { ;# middle left tablelist
$tbl configure -stripebackground #e0e8f0
}
3 { ;# middle right tablelist
$tbl configure -stripebackground #e0e8f0 -showseparators yes
}
4 { ;# bottom left tablelist
foreach col {1 3} {
$tbl columnconfigure $col -background linen
}
}
5 { ;# bottom right tablelist
$tbl configure -showseparators yes
foreach col {1 3} {
$tbl columnconfigure $col -background linen
}
}
}
foreach row {0 1 2 3} {
$tbl insert end \
[list "Cell $row,0" "Cell $row,1" "Cell $row,2" "Cell $row,3"]
}
}
The only configuration option used here but not encountered in the first two
examples is -showseparators. The
visual effect it produces looks nice both by itself and combined with
horizontal or vertical stripes, created by using the -stripebackground option
and the columnconfigure subcommand,
respectively. On the other hand, it is no good idea to mix horizontal
stripes with vertical ones.