wxruby users - Dec 2007 - controls within a wxTreeCtrl

What I''d like to be able to do is use a wxTreeCtrl to manage a tree
layout
of not only text, but several buttons which would line up adjacent to the
text in the tree items.  I''ve googled around a bit on this and it
doesn''t
seem straightforward, if it is possible at all.

Can anyone provide any pointers for attempting this?

In a simple ASCI schematic, it would be like this:

+ RootItem A B C
  + TreeItem1 A B C
  + TreeItem2 A B C


where RootItem and TreeItem(s) are text labels, and A, B, and C, are simple
buttons with icons on them.

I am starting to think that I will have to synthesize the entire thing using
sizers.  Would it even be possible in the wx model to dynamically add/remove
items and spacers to create a tree-like behavior?  Thoughts?

Thanks,
Bob


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Robert Anderson wrote:
>
> What I''d like to be able to do is use a wxTreeCtrl to manage a
tree
> layout of not only text, but several buttons which would line up 
> adjacent to the text in the tree items.  I''ve googled around a bit
on
> this and it doesn''t seem straightforward, if it is possible at
all.
>
> Can anyone provide any pointers for attempting this?
This comes up frequently in C++ wxWidgets. There''s no core class in 
wxWidgets which does this, and hence nothing in wxRuby. But there are 
numerous user-contributed classes on eg wxCode which have multi-column 
TreeCtrls.

But at present these are only in C++, and I have no experience of trying 
to wrap third-party C++ extensions in Ruby. For some classes this should 
not be too hard using SWIG - but TreeCtrl is one of the most complex 
wrappings in wxRuby.
> I am starting to think that I will have to synthesize the entire thing 
> using sizers.  Would it even be possible in the wx model to 
> dynamically add/remove items and spacers to create a tree-like 
> behavior?  Thoughts?
One possibility might be to have two sibling controls, a TreeCtrl on the 
left, and a Panel on the right where the buttons are drawn. Use 
TreeCtrl#get_bounding_rect to find the position of each of the visible 
tree items, and place Wx::Buttons at an appropriate height on the right. 
Or you can draw directly control-like things upon the panel with a 
DeviceContext (DC), possibly using RendererNative to get the right look 
and feel for your platform. Either way, update the Panel''s contents as 
tree items are collapsed and expanded (with event handlers).

This would mean that there would be a gap between the text labels and 
the associated buttons. Closer to what you want would be to try drawing 
directly on top of the TreeCtrl, again using get_bounding_rect to find 
where the label is positioned. But I am not sure how well drawing 
directly on top of a native control will work - be sure to test on any 
platform you want to use.

hth
alex

Alex Fenton wrote:
> Use TreeCtrl#get_bounding_rect to find the position of each of the visible 
> tree items
PS -  I guess no-one''s ever wanted to use this method before - it works
OK for me but in an un-rubyish way. You have to create an empty Wx::Rect 
object, then pass it in as a parameter to have its values updated with 
the x,y,w,h values.

We''ll add something more ruby-ish which accepts an id and returns a 
bounding rect for 1.9.3

alex