This is a (for lack of a better name) hypertext widget.
This widget combines text and other Tk widgets in the same window.
It is sort of a cross between a read-only text widget and the pack command.
Any widget can be attached to the hypertext window by the %%
set this $htext(widget)
label $this.lab -text "append " -relief sunken \
-font *-Courier-Bold-R-Normal-*-12-120-*
$this append $this.lab
%% command.
For example,
%% message $this.msg -relief sunken -bd 2 -aspect 10000 -font \
*-Courier-Medium-R-Normal-*-12-* -text {set w $htext(widget)
label $w.face -bitmap @bitmaps/face.xbm \
-relief sunken -borderwidth 2
$w append $w.face -padx 2 -pady 0.25i}
$this append $this.msg \
-fill both %% added this %%
global tk_library
label $this.face \
-bitmap @bitmaps/face.xbm \
-relief sunken -borderwidth 2
$this append $this.face -padx 2 -pady 0.25i
%%.
There can be many types of widgets in the same document. For example,
this is a simple %%
button $this.but -bg pink -text { button } \
-command { puts stderr { a stupid message } }
$this append $this.but
%%. If you click on the button, it prints a stupid message.
Any Tk widget can be used, including %%
set whichTile 0
proc ChangeTile { w } {
global whichTile
if { $whichTile } {
$w configure -tile bgTexture2
} else {
$w configure -tile bgTexture1
}
}
checkbutton $this.ckbut -bg lightblue -text { check buttons } \
-variable whichTile -command "ChangeTile $this"
$this append $this.ckbut -justify top
%%, %%
radiobutton $this.rdbut -bg mediumseagreen -text { radio buttons } \
-command { puts stderr { radio button pressed } }
$this append $this.rdbut -justify bottom
%%,
and scales %%
# -sliderforeground
scale $this.sc -showvalue true \
-length 100 \
-foreground powderblue \
-sliderlength 10 \
-orient horizontal
$this append $this.sc
%%.
Widget trees can be also be included. The following example is
*borrowed* from the widget demo. It is a couple of frames surrounding a
listbox, a message, and a button widget.
%%
set w $this.frame
frame $w
message $w.msg -font *times-medium-r-normal--*-12-120-* -aspect 300 \
-text "A listbox containing the 50 states is displayed below, along with a scrollbar. You can scan the list either using the scrollbar or by dragging in the listbox window with button 3 pressed. Click the \"OK\" button when you've seen enough." -bg lightsteelblue -relief sunken
frame $w.frame -borderwidth 10
pack append $w.frame \
[scrollbar $w.frame.scroll -relief sunken \
-command "$w.frame.list yview"] {right expand filly frame w} \
[listbox $w.frame.list -yscroll "$w.frame.scroll set" -relief sunken] \
{left expand filly frame e}
$w.frame.list insert 0 Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California \
Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois \
Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland \
Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri \
Montana Nebraska Nevada "New Hampshire" "New Jersey" "New Mexico" \
"New York" "North Carolina" "North Dakota" \
Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania "Rhode Island" \
"South Carolina" "South Dakota" \
Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington \
"West Virginia" Wisconsin Wyoming
button $w.ok -text OK -command "puts stderr $w; destroy $w"
pack append $w $w.msg {top fill} $w.frame {top expand fill} \
$w.ok {bottom fill}
$w config -bg lightsteelblue -relief sunken
$this append $w -pady 0.25i
%%
You can add you own home-grown widgets. Here's the graph widget.
Beside it is the "color" demo. Moving the scales, adjusts the background
color of the graph.
%%
#
# Simple script to change colors of a window.
#
global xlabel ylabel red green blue graph
set red 255
set green 215
set blue 0
option add *Scale.sliderForeground "#cdb79e"
option add *Scale.activeForeground "#ffe4c4"
set w $this.colorFrame
frame $w
scale $w.red -command "color red" -label "Red Intensity" \
-from 0 -to 255 -orient horizontal -bg "#ffaeb9" -length 250
scale $w.green -command "color green" -label "Green Intensity" \
-from 0 -to 255 -orient horizontal -bg "#43cd80"
scale $w.blue -command "color blue" -label "Blue Intensity" \
-from 0 -to 255 -orient horizontal -bg "#7ec0ee"
$w.blue set $blue
$w.green set $green
$w.red set $red
pack append $w $w.red {top expand fill}
pack append $w $w.green {top expand fill}
pack append $w $w.blue {top expand fill}
proc color {which intensity} {
global red green blue graph xlabel ylabel
set $which $intensity
set rgb [format #%02x%02x%02x $red $green $blue]
$graph config -bg $rgb
$xlabel config -bg $rgb
$ylabel config -bg $rgb
}
$this append $w
%%
%%
proc makeplot { widget } {
graph $widget
set X {
2.00000e-01 4.00000e-01 6.00000e-01 8.00000e-01 1.00000e+00
1.20000e+00 1.40000e+00 1.60000e+00 1.80000e+00 2.00000e+00
2.20000e+00 2.40000e+00 2.60000e+00 2.80000e+00 3.00000e+00
3.20000e+00 3.40000e+00 3.60000e+00 3.80000e+00 4.00000e+00
4.20000e+00 4.40000e+00 4.60000e+00 4.80000e+00 5.00000e+00
}
$widget element create Y1 -x $X -y {
1.14471e+01 2.09373e+01 2.84608e+01 3.40080e+01 3.75691e+01
3.91345e+01 3.92706e+01 3.93474e+01 3.94242e+01 3.95010e+01
3.95778e+01 3.96545e+01 3.97313e+01 3.98081e+01 3.98849e+01
3.99617e+01 4.00384e+01 4.01152e+01 4.01920e+01 4.02688e+01
4.03455e+01 4.04223e+01 4.04990e+01 4.05758e+01 4.06526e+01
} -symbol circle -label VGS=2.0 -color blue4 -fill blue
$widget element create Y2 -x $X -y {
2.61825e+01 5.04696e+01 7.28517e+01 9.33192e+01 1.11863e+02
1.28473e+02 1.43140e+02 1.55854e+02 1.66606e+02 1.75386e+02
1.82185e+02 1.86994e+02 1.89802e+02 1.90683e+02 1.91047e+02
1.91411e+02 1.91775e+02 1.92139e+02 1.92503e+02 1.92867e+02
1.93231e+02 1.93595e+02 1.93958e+02 1.94322e+02 1.94686e+02
} -symbol diamond -label VGS=3.5 -color green4 -fill green
$widget element create Y3 -x $X -y {
4.07008e+01 7.95658e+01 1.16585e+02 1.51750e+02 1.85051e+02
2.16479e+02 2.46024e+02 2.73676e+02 2.99427e+02 3.23267e+02
3.45187e+02 3.65177e+02 3.83228e+02 3.99331e+02 4.13476e+02
4.25655e+02 4.35856e+02 4.44073e+02 4.50294e+02 4.54512e+02
4.56716e+02 4.57596e+02 4.58448e+02 4.59299e+02 4.60151e+02
} -symbol triangle -label VGS=5.0 -color red4 -fill red
}
option add *graph.title "Plot Title"
option add *graph.xTitle "X Axis Label"
option add *graph.yTitle "Y Axis Label"
#option add *graph.legendMapped false
option add *graph.elemPixels 8
option add *graph.relief ridge
option add *graph.borderWidth 2
set graph $this.graph
set xlabel $this.xlab
set ylabel $this.ylab
makeplot $graph
$this append $graph -padx 0.25i -pady 0.25i
%%
If you click on any button in the graph, you will get the coordinate
values at the pointer location.
The current coordinate values are %%
label $xlabel -text { ??? ??? } -relief sunken
label $ylabel -text { ??? ??? } -relief sunken
bind $graph <ButtonPress> {labelxy [ %W invtransform %x %y ]}
proc labelxy { values } {
global xlabel ylabel
scan $values "%e %e" x y
$xlabel config -text $x
$ylabel config -text $y
}
$this append $this.xlab -width 100 -fill x
%% and %%
$this append $this.ylab -width 100 -fill x
%%.
There are four global variables automatically created when a hypertext
file is read. They are:
%%
button $this.l1 -text " \$htext(widget) " \
-command "puts $this" -bg orange
$this append $this.l1 -width 200 -pady 4
%%the pathname of the hypertext widget.
%%
button $this.l2 -text " \$htext(file) " \
-command "puts $htext(file)" -bg orange
$this append $this.l2 -width 200 -pady 4
%%the file being read.
%%
button $this.l3 -text " \$htext(line) " \
-command "puts $htext(line)" -bg orange
$this append $this.l3 -width 200 -pady 4
%%the current line number.
%%
button $this.l4 -text " \$htext(index) " \
-command "puts $htext(index)" -bg orange
$this append $this.l4 -width 200 -pady 4
%%the current index in the text.
Click on any button and the current value is printed on standard output.
The hypertext widget works with plain text too. If you don't want
to read it, click on the %%
button $this.goto -text button -fg purple -bg white \
-command "global endOfText; $this gotoline \$endOfText"
$this append $this.goto
%% to jump to the end of the plain text.
------------------------------------------------------
[This is a pre-release version of BLT. It's basically the latest
snapshot of BLT, as it moves towards a full release. What this means
is that the documentation and demos still need work. Let me know
about any configuration/compiler/installation goofs so I make sure
they're fixed for the next release.]
This is version 2.4 of the BLT library. It's an extension to the
Tcl/Tk toolkit. You simply compile and link with the Tcl/Tk
libraries. It does not require the Tcl or Tk source files.
BLT is available from
ftp.tcltk.com
in the "pub/blt" directory. The URL is
ftp://ftp.tcltk.com/pub/blt/BLT2.4.tar.gz
This release has been compiled and tested with versions:
Tcl 7.5 / Tk 4.1
Tcl 7.6 / Tk 4.2
Tcl/Tk 8.0
Tcl/Tk 8.1a2
What is BLT?
BLT is an extension to Tk. It adds plotting widgets (X-Y graph,
barchart, stripchart), a powerful geometry manager, a new canvas
item, and several new commands to Tk.
Plotting widgets:
graph, barchart, stripchart
BLT has X-Y graph, barchart, and stripchart widgets that are
both easy to use and customize. All the widgets work with
BLT vector data objects, which makes it easy to manage data.
Hierarchical list box:
hierbox Displays a general ordered tree which may be built
on-the-fly or all at once.
Tab set:
tabset Can be used either as a tab notebook or simple tabset.
Multi-tiered and/or scrolled tabsets are available.
Notebook pages can be torn-off into separate windows and
later put back.
Geometry Manager:
table A table-based geometry manager. Lets you specify widget
layouts by row and column positions in the table. Unlike the
packer or grid, you can finely control and constrain window
sizes.
Vector Data Object:
vector Lets you manage a vector of floating point values in a
high-level fashion. Vectors inter-operate seamlessly with
the plotting widgets. The graphs will automatically redraw
themselves when the vector data changes. Vector's components
can be managed through a Tcl array variable, a Tcl command,
or the using its own C API.
Background Program Execution:
bgexec Like Tcl's "exec ... &", but collects the output, error, and
status of the detached UNIX subprocesses. Sets a Tcl variable
upon completion.
Busy Command:
busy For preventing user-interactions when the application is
busy. Manages an invisible "busy" window which prevents
further user interactions (keyboard, mouse, button, etc.).
Also you can provide a busy cursor that temporarily
overrides those of the Tk widgets.
New Canvas Item:
eps An new item is added to the Tk canvas for handling
encapsulated PostScript. It lets you embed an EPS file into
the canvas displaying either an EPS preview image found in
the file, or a Tk image that you provide. When you print
the canvas the EPS item will automatically include the EPS
file, translating and scaling the PostScript. For example,
you could use "eps" items to tile several PostScript pages
into single page.
The "eps" item can also be used as a replacement for "image"
canvas items. Unlike "image" canvas items, the image of an
eps item can be printed and scaled arbitrarily.
Drag & Drop Facility:
drag&drop Adds drag-n-drop capabilities to Tk. It uses "send"-style
communication between drag-drop sources and targets. The
result is a much more powerful drag-and-drop mechanism than
is available with OpenLook or Motif.
Bitmap Command:
bitmap Lets you read and write bitmaps from Tcl. You can define
bitmaps from ordinary text strings. Bitmaps can also be
scaled and rotated. For example, you can create a button
with rotated text by defining a bitmap from a text string
and rotating it. You can then use the bitmap in the button
widget.
Miscellaneous Commands:
winop Basic window operations. You can raise, lower, map, or,
unmap windows. Other operations let you move the pointer
or take photo image snapshots of Tk widgets.
bltdebug Lets you trace the execution of Tcl commands and procedures.
Prints out each Tcl command before it's executed.
watch Lets you specify Tcl procedures to be run before and/or
after every Tcl command. May be used for logging, tracing,
profiling, or debugging or Tcl code.
spline Computes a spline fitting a set of data points (x and y
vectors) and produces a vector of the interpolated images
(y-coordinates) at a given set of x-coordinates.
htext A simple hypertext widget. Allows text and Tk widgets to
be combined in a scroll-able text window. Any Tk widget
can be embedded and used to form hyper-links. Other
options allow for selections and text searches.
What's new in 2.4?
1. "eps" canvas item.
An encapsulated PostScript canvas item lets you embed an EPS file into
the canvas. The "eps" item displays either a EPS preview image found
in the file, or a Tk image that you provide.
2. "hierbox" widget.
Hierarchical listbox widget. Displays a general ordered tree which
may be built on-the-fly or all at once.
3. "tabset" widget.
Can be used either as a tab notebook or simple tabset. Tabs can
be arranged in a variety of ways: multi-tiered, scrolled, and
attached to any of the four sides. Tab labels can contain both
images and text (text can be arbitrarily rotated). Notebook pages
can be torn-off into separate windows and replaced later.
4. Changes to vectors.
New features:
o Vector expressions. The vector now has an "expr" operation
that lets you perform math (including math library
functions) on vectors. There are several new functions
(such as "max", "min", "mean" "median", "q1", "q3", "prod",
"sum", "adev", "sdev", "skew", ...)
vector expr { sin(x)^2 + cos(x)^2 }
y expr { log(x) * $value }
o New syntax to create and destroy vectors:
vector create x
vector destroy x
The old syntax for creating vectors still works.
vector x
o Vectors are *not* automatically deleted when their Tcl
variable is unset anymore. This means that you can
temporarily map vectors to variables and use them as you
would an ordinary Tcl array (kind of like "upvar").
proc AddValue { vecName value } {
$vecName variable x
set x(++end) $value
}
There's an "-watchunset" flag to restore the old
behavior if you need it.
vector create x -watchunset yes
o Vectors still automatically create Tcl variables by
default. I'd like to change this, but it silently
breaks lots of code, so it will stay.
Bug fixes:
o Vector reallocation failed when shrinking the vector.
o Vector "destroy" callback made after vector was
already freed.
5. Changes to Graph, Barchart, Stripchart widgets.
New features:
o Drop shadows for text (titles, markers, etc). Drop
shadows improve contrast when displaying text over a
background with similar color intensities.
o Postscript "-preview" option to generate a EPS
PostScript preview image that can be read and
displayed by the EPS canvas item.
o New "-topvariable", "-bottomvariable",
"-leftvariable", and "-rightvariable" options. They
specify variables to contain the current margin
sizes. These variables are updated whenever the
graph is redrawn.
o New "-aspect" option. Let's you maintain a particular aspect
ratio for the the graph.
o Image markers can now be stretched and zoomed like
bitmap markers.
o Bind operation for legend entries, markers, and elements.
Much thanks to Julian Loaring <bigj@bigj.demon.co.uk>
for the suggestions.
o New "-xor" option for line markers, lets you draw the line
by rubberbanded by XOR-ing without requiring the graph to
be redrawn. This can be used, for example, to select regions
like in zooming.
Thanks to Johannes Zellner (joze@krisal.physik.uni-karlsruhe.de)
for the suggestion.
Bug fixes:
o Closest line (point) broken when using pens styles.
o Marker elastic coordinates were wrong.
o PostScript bounding box included the border of the page.
o Bad PostScript generated for barchart symbols with stipples.
o Wrong dimensions computed with postscript " -maxpect" option.
o Text markers fixed.
Thanks to De Clarke for the bug report and fix.
o Renamed axis configuration from "-range" to "-autorange" to
match the documentation.
Thanks to Brian Smith for the correction.
o Fixed polygon marker pick routine.
o Fixed active tab labels overlapping the selected tab.
What's incompatible with releases prior to BLT 2.4?
1. Vector names must start with a letter and contain letters, digits,
or underscores.
Namespace Issues: Vector names are still global. If Tcl provides
an API, vectors may in the future be created on
a per-namespace basis. Right now, there's no
mechanism for detecting when a namespace has been
destroyed. Which is why you can't currently
prefix a vector name with a namespace qualifier.
[Ok, there is... Thanks to Michael McLennan for
pointing this out to me. So maybe soon there
will be vectors on a per namespace basis.]
2. The "-mapped" options throughout the graph have been replaced
by the "-hide" option. The many usages of the word "map" was
getting confusing.
# No longer works.
.graph legend configure -mapped no
# Instead use this.
.graph legend configure -hide yes
How to compile and test BLT?
See the file "INSTALL" for instructions.
When will the so-called "official" BLT work with Windows?
It currently compiles and runs with MS VC++ and EGCS 1.1 under
Windows 95/NT (loadable binary versions will be forthcoming).
Everything pretty much works: graphs, bgexec, busy, drag&drop etc.
When will...?
In general, I can't answer the "When will" questions, mostly out of
embarrassment. My estimates of when new features and releases will
occur usually turn out to be way way off.
What does BLT stand for?
Whatever you want it to.
--gah
%%
global endOfText
set endOfText [expr $htext(line)-1 ]
global updateInterval count barchart
global Red Green Blue
set updateInterval 200
set count 0
set Red bb
set Green 00
set Blue 33
option add *barchart.title "Bar Chart"
option add *barchart.x.title "X"
option add *barchart.y.title "Y"
option add *barchart.y2.title "Y"
option add *barchart.Axis.subTicks 0
option add *barchart.x.stepSize 0
option add *barchart.x.Ticks 0
option add *barchart.legend.hide yes
option add *barchart.Axis.Font *-Courier-Bold-R-Normal-*-8-80-*
option add *barchart.y2.hide yes
set barchart $this.barchart
barchart $barchart -bd 2 -relief raised -tile bgTexture2
$barchart y2axis use y
$this append $barchart -fill both -padx 10 -pady 10 -relwidth 0.8
proc AnimateBarchart { } {
global updateInterval
global barchart count Red Blue Green
if { [info commands $barchart] != $barchart } {
return
}
incr count
if { $count > 100 } {
$barchart element delete [lindex [$barchart element show] end]
}
set color [format "%x" [expr $count%16]]
set Green ${color}${color}
$barchart element create $count -data { $count sin($count*0.1)} \
-fg #${Red}${Green}${Blue} -bg brown
after $updateInterval AnimateBarchart
}
AnimateBarchart
%%
Press %%
button $this.quit -command { exit } -text {Quit} -bg pink
$this append $this.quit
%% to remove the window.
