The container widget lets organize your application by displaying each graph as a page in a folder of a notebook. Only one page is visible at a time. When you click on a tab, the folder (graph) corresponding to the tab is displayed in the container widget. The container also lets you temporarily tear pages out of the notebook into a separate toplevel widget, and put them back in the container later. For example, you could compare two graphs side-by-side by tearing them out, and then replace them when you are finished.
A container may contain an unlimited number of folders. If there are too many tabs to view, you can arrange them as multiple tiers or scroll the tabs. The container uses the conventional Tk scrollbar syntax, so you can attach a scrollbar too.
# Create a new container container .c
A new Tcl command .c is also created. This command can be used to query and modify the container. For example, to change the default borderwidth, you use the new command and the container's configure operation.
# Change the default font. .c configure -borderwidth 2
You can then add folders using the insert operation.
# Create a new folder "f1" .c coinsert 0 "f1"
This inserts the new tab named "f1" into the container. The index 0 indicates location to insert the new tab. You can also use the index end to append a tab to the end of the container. By default, the text of the tab is the name of the tab. You can change this by configuring the -text option.
# Change the label of "f1" .ts tab configure "f1" -label "Tab #1"
The insert operation lets you add one or more folders at a time.
.ts insert end "f2" -label "Tab #2" "f3" "f4"
The tab on each folder contains a label. A label may display both an image and a text string. You can reconfigure the tab's attributes (foreground/background colors, font, rotation, etc) using the tab configure operation.
# Add an image to the label of "f1" set image [image create photo -file stopsign.gif] .ts tab configure "f1" -image $image .ts tab configure "f2" -rotate 90
Each folder may contain an embedded widget to represent its contents. The widget to be embedded must be a child of the container widget. Using the -window option, you specify the name of widget to be embedded. But don't pack the widget, the container takes care of placing and arranging the widget for you.
graph .ts.graph
.ts tab configure "f1" -window ".ts.graph" \
-fill both -padx 0.25i -pady 0.25i
The size of the folder is determined the sizes of the Tk widgets embedded inside each folder. The folder will be as wide as the widest widget in any folder. The tallest determines the height. You can use the tab's -pagewidth and -pageheight options override this.
Other options control how the widget appears in the folder. The -fill option says that you wish to have the widget stretch to fill the available space in the folder.
.ts tab configure "f1" -fill both -padx 0.25i -pady 0.25i
Now when you click the left mouse button on "f1", the graph will be displayed in the folder. It will be automatically hidden when another folder is selected. If you click on the right mouse button, the embedded widget will be moved into a toplevel widget of its own. Clicking again on the right mouse button puts it back into the folder.
If you want to share a page between two different folders, the -command option lets you specify a Tcl command to be invoked whenever the folder is selected. You can reset the -window option for the tab whenever it's clicked.
.ts tab configure "f2" -command {
.ts tab configure "f2" -window ".ts.graph"
}
.ts tab configure "f1" -command {
.ts tab configure "f1" -window ".ts.graph"
}
If you have many folders, you may wish to stack tabs in multiple tiers. The container's -tiers option requests a maximum number of tiers. The default is one tier.
.ts configure -tiers 2
If the tabs can fit in less tiers, the widget will use that many. Whenever there are more tabs than can be displayed in the maximum number of tiers, the container will automatically let you scroll the tabs. You can even attach a scrollbar to the container.
.ts configure -scrollcommand { .sbar set } -scrollincrement 20
.sbar configure -orient horizontal -command { .ts view }
By default tabs are along the top of the container from left to right. But tabs can be placed on any side of the container using the -side option.
# Arrange tabs along the right side of the container. .ts configure -side right -rotate 270
container pathName ?option value?...
Additional options may be specified on the command line or in the option database to configure aspects of the container such as its colors, font, text, and relief. The container command returns its pathName argument. At the time this command is invoked, there must not exist a window named pathName, but pathName's parent must exist.
When first created, a new container contains no tabs. Tabs are added or deleted using widget operations described below. It is not necessary for all the tabs to be displayed in the container window at once; commands described below may be used to change the view in the window. Containers allow scrolling of tabs using the -scrollcommand option. They also support scanning (see the scan operation). Tabs may be arranged along any side of the container window using the -side option.
The size of the container window is determined the number of tiers of tabs and the sizes of the Tk widgets embedded inside each folder. The widest widget determines the width of the folder. The tallest determines the height. If no folders contain an embedded widget, the size is determined solely by the size of the tabs.
You can override either dimension with the container's -width and -height options.
pathName operation ?arg arg ...?
Operation and the args determine the exact behavior of the command. The following operations are available for container widgets: