Chapter 15: Creating a Custom iTool Widget Interface 339
iTool Developer’s Guide iTool Widget Interface Concepts
• require an object reference to an iTool user interface object on creation.
• do not generate widget events.
• do not have a value that can be retrieved or set.
• are able to receive and respond to selected messages from the iTool messaging
system.
In addition, the CW_ITPANEL, CW_ITSTATUSBAR, and CW_ITWINDOW
compound widgets must be resized using their associated _RESIZE procedures,
rather than by explicitly setting the XSIZE and YSIZE keywords.
Example iTool Widget Interfaces
Two examples of functioning iTool widget interface code are included in the IDL
distribution:
Example Custom iTool Widget Interface — A functioning custom iTool widget
interface definition, an associated iTool class definition, and an associated launch
routine are included in the
examples/doc/itools subdirectory of the IDL
distribution. The example interface is described in detail in “Example: a Custom
iTool Interface” on page 360.
Standard iTool Widget Interface — The widget interface code used as the standard
iTool interface is included in the IDL distribution in the file
idlitwdtool.pro, in
the
lib/itools/ui_widgets subdirectory. The standard interface is used by all of
the iTools included with IDL. Inspecting this file will give you insights into how the
developers of the standard iTools intended the iTool compound widgets to be used, as
well as other details.
