Interactive Tablelist Cell Editing Using Tk Core Widgets

by

Csaba Nemethi

csaba.nemethi@t-online.de

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Overview

Tablelist supports interactive cell editing with the aid of the Tk core entry, text, spinbox, and checkbutton widgets.  These widgets are automatically registered for cell editing, hence the only action needed for using one of them for editing the cells of a given column is as follows:

Use the tablelist widget's columnconfigure subcommand to set the given column's -editable option to true and its -editwindow option to entry, text, spinbox, or checkbutton, respectively.  (These options are supported at cell level, too, with the aid of the cellconfigure subcommand.)  Since the default value of the -editwindow column configuration option is entry, it is not necessary to set it explicitly if the editing should take place with the aid of an embedded entry widget.

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Interactive Cell Editing Using the entry Widget

DESCRIPTION
As mentioned above, the interactive cell editing in a tablelist widget takes place per default with the aid of an embedded entry widget.  Refer to the INTERACTIVE CELL EDITING section of the reference page describing the tablelist::tablelist command for details on the editing process.

KEYWORDS
tablelist, editing, entry

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Interactive Cell Editing Using the text Widget

DESCRIPTION
The temporary embedded text widget used for interactive cell editing will be created with its -padx and -pady options set to 2, its -wrap option set to none, and its initial height set to the number of lines contained in it.  There is, however, an exception from this rule:  If the -wrap option of the cell's column was set to true and Tk version 8.5 or higher is being used, then the text widget's -wrap option will be set to word and its initial height will equal the number of display lines (taking into account the line wraps) contained in it.  You can use the script corresponding to the -editstartcommand tablelist configuration option to override the initial settings according to your needs.

If the text widget's -wrap option was set to word or char (either by Tablelist or from within the above-mentioned script) and Tk version 8.5 or higher is being used, then, whenever its width changes (e.g., due to interactive column resizing), its height will be set automatically to the number of display lines contained in it.  (The number of display lines is retrieved with the aid of the  count -displaylines  text widget subcommand, introduced in Tk 8.5.)

If the widget callback package Wcb was loaded into the interpreter (via  package require Wcb  or  package require wcb)  then the text widget's height will be updated automatically whenever text is inserted into or deleted from it, which makes the editing much more user-friendly.  This is achieved by using an appropriately defined after-insert and after-delete callback for the edit window.  You can use the script corresponding to the -editstartcommand tablelist configuration option to define further callbacks for the text widget.  (The above-mentioned callback is created via wcb::cbappend, after returning from that script.)

The Tab key is reserved for navigation between the editable cells, but the user can insert a tabulator character into the text widget by pressing Control-i.

Unlike in the case of the other widgets used for interactive cell editing, the Return and KP_Enter keys insert a newline character into the text widget.  Control-j can also be used for inserting a newline.  Control-Return and Control-KP_Enter terminate the editing and destroy the edit window.

Control-Home and Control-End have their well-known text widget-specific bindings, just like Meta-< and Meta-> if tk_strictMotif is false.  Again, this is different from the behavior of the other widgets used for interactive cell editing.  For jumping into the first/last editable cell, the user can press Alt-Home/Alt-End or Meta-Home/Meta-End (Command-Home/Command-End on Mac OS Classic and Mac OS X Aqua).

KEYWORDS
tablelist, editing, text

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Interactive Cell Editing Using the spinbox Widget

DESCRIPTION
The temporary embedded spinbox widget used for interactive cell editing will be created with its -state option set to normal, which makes the widget editable.  You can use the script corresponding to the -editstartcommand tablelist configuration option to set the state of the spinbox to readonly or define validations for it, as well as for setting its (range of) values and its -wrap option.

KEYWORDS
tablelist, editing, spinbox

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Interactive Cell Editing Using the checkbutton Widget

DESCRIPTION
On Windows, Mac OS Classic, and Mac OS X Aqua the temporary embedded checkbutton widget used for interactive cell editing will be created with explicitly set values for its -borderwidth, -font, -padx, -pady, and -variable options.  In an X11 environment it will be created with explicitly set values for its -borderwidth, -indicatoron, -image, -selectimage, -selectcolor, and -variable options.  You can use the script corresponding to the -editstartcommand tablelist configuration option to set any other configuration options, like -offvalue and -onvalue, according to the internal values of the cells.  Since the default values of the -offvalue and -onvalue checkbutton options are 0 and 1, you don't need to change these options if the cells have the same internal values 0 and 1.

KEYWORDS
tablelist, editing, checkbutton

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