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From: kit@EXPO.LCS.MIT.EDU (Chris D. Peterson)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: Form widget size restrictions?
Message-ID: <8904251551.AA23514@expo.lcs.mit.edu>
Date: 25 Apr 89 15:51:23 GMT
References: <8904251432.AA04169@sunbar.mc.duke.edu>
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
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Lines: 98



I am Posting this to xpert, bacause I think it may be of general interest.


> Well, I tried what you suggested (or what I think you suggested), and
> it doesn't seem to help.

> What I really want is:


>	 --------
>       | ------ |
>       ||	||
>       ||	||
>       ||	||
>       ||	||
>       ||	||
>       ||	||
>       ||	||
>       | ------ |
>	 --------


>	 -------------------
>	|		    |
>	|		    |
>	|		    |
>	|		    |
>	| NextForm	    |
>	|		    |
>	 -------------------

> or some such.


Oh, sorry to give you the wrong advice, I was confused.

Since your nextForm widget will not be clipped by the original Shell widget
its window will need to be a child of the root window of the display.  The
only widgets that can be children of the root window are Shell widgets.  
Thes widgets know how to interact with the window manager. What you need to do
is use XtCreatePopupShell() using applicationShellWidgetClass.  I would use 
the Shell returned by XtInitialize() as the parent of this popup.  This will
give you resource specs of:

top.form.Command.label:				foo

and

top.nextShell.nextForm.Command.label:		bar

Since nextShell would be a direct decendant of top.  


To make this form visable use: 

XtPopup(nextShell, XtGrabNone); 

or

XtRealizeWidget();
XtMapWidget();       /* popup shells may not get explicitly mapped at realize
                        time, this is done so you can realize menus at creation
                        time, event though you are not ready to map them yet. */

For more info in the Intrinsics manual read:

Chapter 4 Shell Widgets
Chapter 5 Popup Widgets

For example code take a look at xman from the R3 tape (it is best if you have
patches 1-8 applied since xman got major changes).  Xman pops up 
multiple children of the root (each new manpage).  The code that does this
is called CreateManpage() and is in buttons.c.  Xman uses the strategy of 
never realizing the widget returned by XtInitialize.  This allows all
manual pages to be equal.

> I've tried looking at other code, but almost everything is still using 
> XtInitialize,

XtInitialize() will probabally be move back into the main specification 
in R4 as it is a useful convience routine, don't spend a lot of time
converting unless you have need that require it.  I have gone to using
XtInitialize() combined with XtWidgetToApplicationContext() to get my 
appcontext so that I can use XtAppMainLoop() and the other XtApp*() functions.

> Basically, I'd like to be able to place widgets at arbitrary screen locations,
> without my users having to point and click.

But how do you know where is a good place to put the window?  It seems
to me that the only person who really knows where to put a window is the user, and
if he doesn't like to point and click then he/she can put a geometry
specification in his/her resource file.


                                                Chris D. Peterson
                                                MIT X Consortium