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Frame

The most basic widget in Glish/Tk is the frame widget. The frame widgets group other Tk widgets and are the parent of most other widgets in Tk. They position and group multiple widgets and insert space into the GUI layout forming the basis for layout specifications.

Here is a simple Glish/Tk example that creates a number of frames:

    f := frame(side='left')
    rec := [=]
    for (i in "raised sunken flat groove ridge")
       rec[i] := frame(f,relief=i)

In this example, f is set to a toplevel frame. Toplevel frames are stand-alone windows which have no parent. The frame function creates the frames. In this case only one parameter is specified, side. By default, frames arrange other widgets from top to bottom, i.e. the default value for side is 'top'. By specifying 'left' here, the frame packs children widgets from left to right.

A record is created and used to hold the other frames they are produced. The loop loops through each of the different Tk relief styles. The final assignment assigns a frame to elements of the record. The first parameter to frame() is an optional parent, and in this case, the parent for these frames is f. Another optional parameter for frames is relief. It specifies the edge relief of the frame. The default relief is 'flat'.

The window which is generated by this simple script is shown in Figure 11.1.

Figure 11.1: Frame

It shows each of the five different reliefs available for the Tk widgets. In this example, the frames are the children of another frame, and they are packed in the parent frame horizontally.

Frames have a number of other optional parameters, and Table 11.2 lists these options.

Table 11.2: Frame Construction Parameters

Parameter	Default	Values	Description
parent	F	widget	parent of the frame
relief	'flat'	'flat' 'ridge' 'raised' 'sunken' 'groove'	border relief
borderwidth	2	dimension	width of the border
side	'top'	'top' 'left' 'right' 'bottom'	direction for child placement
padx	0	dimension	horizontal padding
pady	0	dimension	vertical padding
expand	'both'	'both' 'none' 'x' 'y'	frame expansion when resized
background	'lightgrey'	X color	the background color
width	70	dimension	default width of empty frame
height	50	dimension	default height of empty frame
cursor	''	X cursor name	cursor displayed in frame
title	'glish/tk'	string	string displayed by window manager
icon	''	path	path to xbitmap file
newcmap	F	boolean	use private color map?
tlead	F	widget	leader for this popup frame
tpos	'sw'	'c' 'n' 's' 'e' 'w' 'ne' 'nw' 'se' 'sw'	location of this popup, relative to tlead
hlcolor	''	X color	highlight color with focus
hlbackground	''	X color	highlight color without focus
hlthickness	[]	dimension	hightlight border thickness
visual	''	'staticgrey', 'greyscale', 'staticcolor', 'pseudocolor', 'truecolor', 'directcolor', 'best'11.2	set the visual to be used for all drawing within the frame
visualdepth	[]	integer	bit depth of desired visual

In addition to specifying frame attributes at construction time, frames accept events which are used to modify frame characteristics. For example, you may want to change the cursor for a frame to indicate the application is busy so the user must wait. Continuing the example above:

    f->cursor('watch')

After this statement, the ``watch'' cursor is used whenever the user enters the frame with the mouse. All Glish/Tk widgets accept and generate events. Table 11.3 lists the events which frames accept.

Table 11.3: Frame Events

Event	I/O	Values	Description
background	$\rightarrow$	X color	change background color
bind	$\rightarrow$	<X> <G>	associate Xevent <X> with Glish event <G>
borderwidth	$\rightarrow$	dimension	change border width
cursor	$\rightarrow$	X cursor name	change the cursor for this frame
disable	$\rightarrow$		disable all widgets within frame, must be balanced by enable
enable	$\rightarrow$		enable all widgets within frame, must be balanced by disable
expand	$\rightarrow$	'both' 'none' 'x' 'y'	change the resizing behavior
fonts	$\leftarrow$		all available fonts as a string
grab	$\rightarrow$	'global' 'local'	change focus to this frame
height	$\leftarrow$		get current height of frame
hlbackground	$\rightarrow$	X color	highlight color without focus
hlcolor	$\rightarrow$	X color	highlight color with focus
hlthickness	$\rightarrow$	dimension	hightlight border thickness
icon	$\rightarrow$	path	change icon of frame
killed	$\leftarrow$		frame was deleted by user
map	$\rightarrow$		make the toplevel frame visible
padx	$\rightarrow$	dimension	set horizontal padding
pady	$\rightarrow$	dimension	set vertical padding
raise	$\rightarrow$	none or toplevel frame	raise frame, just above param if supplied
release	$\rightarrow$		release a grab on this frame
relief	$\rightarrow$	'flat' 'ridge' 'raised' 'sunken' 'groove'	change border relief
resize	$\leftarrow$	old and new size	indicates frame was resized by user
side	$\rightarrow$	'top' 'left' 'right' 'bottom'	direction for child placement
title	$\rightarrow$	string	set title of frame
unmap	$\rightarrow$		hide the toplevel frame
width	$\leftarrow$		get current width of frame

It is important to note that sending a global grab event to an empty frame is a sure way to lock up your X session. This is because there is no way to release the grab.

In addition to toplevel frames and nested frames, it is also possible to create popup or transient frames. These frames are created whenever you need a toplevel frame which does not have the window manager decorations. These transient frames are created relative to some other widget. For example, this

    f := frame()
    b := button(f)
    b->bind('<Enter>','enter')
    b->bind('<Leave>','exit')
    whenever b->enter do
        t := frame(tlead=b,tpos='se',background='blue')
    whenever b->exit do
        t := F

will create a button, and whenever the cursor enters the button, it will pop up a blue frame. When the cursor exits the button, it will pop down the frame. The position of the transient frame is defined relative to another widget, here b, which is passed as the tlead parameter. The tpos parameter specifies where in relation to the tlead widget the frame should be positioned, in this case the southeast corner. When the tlead widget is moved, any transient frames which are associated with it move too. These transient frames are useful for things like popup help.