348 Chapter 15: Creating a Custom iTool Widget Interface
Adding an iTool Window iTool Developer’s Guide
Adding an iTool Window
An iTool drawable area, or window, is created using the CW_ITWINDOW
compound widget. The iTool window can display iTool visualizations and atomic
IDL graphics objects, provides a mechanism for the display of the iTools property
sheet interface, and makes it easy to perform tasks including translation, rotation, and
scaling of visualizations using standard iTool manipulators. The signature of the
CW_ITWINDOW function is:
Result = CW_ITWINDOW(Parent, UI [, KEYWORDS] )
where:
• Parent is the widget ID of the base widget on which the drawable area will be
displayed.
• UI is the user interface object associated with the interface.
• KEYWORDS are keywords either handled explicitly by the widget or passed
through to the widgets that make up the compound widget.
Window Sizing Keywords
Two properties of the iTool window are worth understanding. The DIMENSIONS
keyword specifies the visible area of the window in pixels as a two-element array
[width, height]. The VIRTUAL_DIMENSIONS keyword specifies the total size of
the drawing area in pixels as a two-element array [width, height]. These two
keywords replace the XSIZE/YSIZE and SCR_XSIZE/SCR_YSIZE keywords to the
standard IDL draw widget. The X_SCROLL_SIZE/Y_SCROLL_SIZE keywords are
likewise unnecessary and ignored; the iTool window automatically handles the
addition of scrollbars when necessary.
Modifying Window Contents
The contents of an iTool window can be modified interactively by the user in
numerous ways:
• using the mouse and one of the available manipulators (translate, rotate, scale,
etc.).
• by interactively selecting an available operation from an iTool menu or
toolbar.
• by interactively changing a property value using the iTool property sheet.
