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From: Janet.Incerpi@MIRSA.INRIA.FR (Janet Incerpi)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x.motif
Subject: Re: A row/column or form problem
Message-ID: <9101150950.AA27629@columbo.inria.fr>
Date: 15 Jan 91 09:50:03 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Distribution: inet
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 27

Yes, the Xform isn't exactly the most friendly object in the widget hierarchy.
i wanted to do exactly the same thing, figuring it must be easy given what you
see for the various selection boxes (3 buttons and perfect resizing).

i considered the XmAttach_Position approach (suggested by Jeff Boote), this gets
you almost there.  Unfortunately you'd be attaching the left or right side of
an object to a fixed (percentage) position.  This doesn't work since what you 
want is the middle of the middle button attached to the middle of the form.

My messy solution is to create a dummy button in the form.  This button, which i
arrange to have half the size of the middle button, is attached to the form, say
on the right attachment using XmATTACH_POSITION=50.  i then attach the middle 
button ("Close") to the dummy button.   That is, use attach_opposite_widget so 
that the left side of the dummy and middle buttons are aligned.  Now my middle 
button is perfect, except if you change the label.  You can't have everything!

The problem is in laying out widgets one sometimes need scaffolding and this
is not provided for.  Imagine that you did a drawing of what you wanted your 
object to look like, you'd draw a line in the form and position your Close
button with the help of this line.  After completing your drawing, you'd erase
the line.  My dummy widget is my scaffolding.  It is a quick and dirty solution
since i don't even erase my scaffolding, he's always there hidden by the middle
button.  A good motif programmer would probably write/do a geometry manager or
some such.  But alas, i'm not a good motif programmer, i specify stuff in UIL
and my application is programmed in Lisp --- never a dull moment!

	--janet