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From: gstiehl@convex.com (Greg Stiehl)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x.motif
Subject: Re: Aligning side-by-side RowColumn widgets
Keywords: RowColumn
Message-ID: <1991Jan10.153947.20059@convex.com>
Date: 10 Jan 91 15:39:47 GMT
References: <2506@apctrc.UUCP>
Sender: news@convex.com (news access account)
Reply-To: gstiehl@convex.com (Greg Stiehl)
Organization: Convex Computer Corp, Graphics Software
Lines: 58
Nntp-Posting-Host: pixel.convex.com


> O.K., I admit defeat. I have been trying for much too long to get
> fields in two side-by-side rowcolumn widgets inside a form dialog
> to line up. What I'm trying to do is this:
> 
> label1     text
> label2     text
> label3     text
> label4     text
> label5     toggle
> etc..

Welcome to the club.  My office mate and I are constantly banging
our heads against this wall.  Although I don't see any feasible way
for two RowColumn widgets to line up elements, it does seem reasonable
to use one RowColumn, set XmNnumColumns = 2 (in this case), and
XmNpacking = XmPACK_TIGHT.

Of course this doesn't work because XmNnumColumns is only meaningful
when XmNpacking is set to XmPACK_COLUMN.  But XmPACK_COLUMN makes
all entries the same size, which is obviously not what you want.

Enough bitching, here are a couple work arounds:

    1. Use a Form.
       a. Connect the top of the first widget in each column
	  to the FORM and subsequent widgets to the previous widget in
	  that column.
       b. Connect the left of each widget in the first column to the FORM.
       c. Connect the right of each widget in the last column to the FORM.
       c. Connect the bottom of each widget to POSITION and set the
	  bottomPosition to I, where I is it's position in the column 
	  (1 = the first element).  Setting XmNfractionBase to the
	  Number of rows.
       d. How you connect the widgets to each other depends on what you
	  want.  The about example would probally want to just attach
	  the text widget to the label widget.
       This is good in that it allows you to leave all the positioning
       up to Motif, but all those attachments can get pretty gross.  It
       is fairly easy to add things to the bottom.  Just remember the last
       row of elements, so attach the new widgets to them.  And increment
       the XmNfractionBase.  It would be a pain to add things in the
       middle.
    2. Use a RowColumn of RowColumns
       This approach uses a lot of widgets, but it makes it easy to
       add things in the middle (as well as the bottom).  On the down
       side, it breaks up the logical grouping of columns of data.
    3. Use a bulletinBoard.
       You basicall have to do all your own placement calculations.  Very
       brute force.  easy to add things at the bottom.  Not a very good
       approach, unless you just can't use any of the above approaches.

I have C source for the first two ways of doing this.  Send me mail if you
want them.  If anyone has a better way, I would be very interested.

-----------
Greg Stiehl (gstiehl@convex.com)
Convex Computer Corporation