338 Chapter 15: Creating a Custom iTool Widget Interface
iTool Widget Interface Concepts iTool Developer’s Guide
iTool Widget Interface Concepts
It is beyond the scope of this chapter to discuss the creation of IDL widget interfaces
in general; see Chapter 2, “Creating Widget Applications” (Widget Application
Programming) for a complete discussion. This section describes some things you will
need to know about working with the iTool compound widgets that encapsulate the
iTool components you can insert into your custom interface.
What Are iTool Compound Widgets?
iTool compound widgets are designed to allow complex iTool components to be
included in an IDL widget interface in a way that is familiar to traditional IDL widget
programmers. The following iTool compound widgets are available:
CW_ITMENU — Encapsulates a top-level iTool menu. Top-level iTool menus are
defined by adding operations to the iTool hierarchy. See “iTool Object Hierarchy” on
page 31 for information on the organization of the iTool hierarchy.
CW_ITPANEL — Encapsulates an iTool user interface panel. User interface panels
allow you to easily add additional IDL widget interface elements to an iTool. In some
cases, you may be able to accomplish what you need by adding a user interface panel
rather than creating an entire custom user interface. See Chapter 14, “Creating a User
Interface Panel” for information on creating panels.
CW_ITTOOLBAR — Encapsulates the iTool toolbar. Toolbars provide access to
commonly used operations and manipulators via toolbar buttons. Toolbars are
defined by adding operations to the iTool hierarchy. See “iTool Object Hierarchy” on
page 31 for information on the organization of the iTool hierarchy.
CW_ITSTATUSBAR — Encapsulates the iTool status bar. The status bar typically
provides user feedback for iTool components, but can be use to display any sort of
message. See “Status Messages” on page 287 for information on using the status bar.
CW_ITWINDOW — Encapsulates the iTool drawable area. All of the functionality of
the standard iTool window — mouse interactions, display of properties of the
selected visualization, context menus — is included in the iTool drawable area.
Special Notes on the iTool Compound Widgets
The iTool compound widgets are designed to look and behave like traditional
compound widgets in most ways, but there are several things you should be aware of
when using them.
iTool compound widgets:
