Subwidgets

Rob Seegel <[email protected]>
Newsgroups gmane.comp.lang.perl.tk
Message-ID <[email protected]>
I know the various arguments about breaking encapsulations and all, but 
I could really use a more convenient method of
configuing subwidgets. I'm currently in the process of revamping 
JComboBox. I've compiled a list of complaints and ideas
from the past year or so, and I'm trying to smooth out the rough spots, 
simplify it where I can,  while at the same time adding
some new functionality. My approach is to document the Subwidgets as 
well as I can -- especially where developers might run into
trouble when configuring them directly, and to phase out several options.

I'm  using another method, that  would be highly convenient if it or 
something like it were added to Tk::Derived. I think I've
mentioned the method on this forum or c.l.p.tk before -- It's called: 
configureSubwidgets. An example usage would be something
like:

$jcomboBox->configureSubwidgets(
    ## Config a blue background for both Button and popup
    [qw/Button Popup/] =>    { -bg => 'blue' },                       

    ## Config white background, and blue foreground  for Box and Listbox
    [qw/Box Listbox/]   =>    { -bg => 'white', -fg => 'blue' },

    ## Config borderwidth of 2, relief of sunken for Popup
    Popup => { -bd => 2, -relief =>  'sunken' }
);

This method would take 1..n pairs of  Subwidget name(s)/Config 
Parameters, the first iterm in the pair would be a single Subwidget name 
or an Array reference containing one or more Subwidget names, and the 
second item would contain a hash ref of configuration parameters that 
would be passed to the named Subwidget(s). It's meant as a convenience 
more than anything else. JComboBox will also have a -subwidgets option 
that will be able to take a similar structure.

I'm interested in what people think of this idea (The good, bad, and the 
ugly), and In the end, it doesn't particularly bother me one way or 
another if functionality like this goes into Tk::Derived or not, but it 
would allow me to take it out of several other widgets I'm working on ;-)

Rob
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