Greetings.
I am struggling with TableMatrix cell updates and hope someone is able to assist me.
My application consists in defining a grid, associating its cell contents with a hash and then updating the hash in a timer event, hoping to see the updates in the TableMatrix.
The problem is that this does not work very well.

I have come to the conclusion that any on of the following methods "work", i.e. actually get the shown data in the cell to reflect what is in the associated variable hash:
1. activating the cell and then activating another cell.
2. calling colWidth on any column.
3. updating the top window.

However, all of these methods have bad side effects and seem less than optimal since they cause flicker or take too long to perform. (My timer runs with 5Hz).
Slightly modified example from TableMatrix follows:
The example _should_ show a cell with updating contents in cell 4,0 but without uncommenting my attempts of updating, it does not.
## basic
##
## This demo shows the basic use of the table widget
##
## jeff.hobbs@acm.org
 
 
use Tk ':eventtypes';
 
use Tk::TableMatrix;
 
use Data::Dumper qw( DumperX);
my $top = MainWindow->new;
 
my $arrayVar = {};
 
foreach my $row  (-1..6){
        foreach my $col (-2..5){
                $arrayVar->{"$row,$col"} = "r$row, c$col";
        }
}
 
## Test out the use of a callback to define tags on rows and columns
sub rowSub{
        my $row = shift;
        return "OddRow" if( $row > 0 && $row % 2) 
}
sub colSub{
        my $col = shift;
        return "OddCol" if( $col > 0 && $col%2) ;
}
 
my $label = $top->Label(-text => "TableMatrix v1 Example");
 
my $t = $top->Scrolled('TableMatrix', -rows => 8, -cols => 8, 
                              -width => 6, -height => 6,
                               -titlerows => 1, -titlecols => 2,
                              -variable => $arrayVar,
                              -roworigin =>  -1,  -colorigin  => -2, 
                              -rowtagcommand => \&rowSub, 
                              -coltagcommand => \&colSub,
                              -colstretchmode => 'last',
                              -rowstretchmode => 'last',
                              -selectmode => 'extended',
                              -sparsearray => 0,
                    );
 
my $button = $top->Button( -text => "Exit", -command => sub{ $top->des
+troy});                   
 
# hideous Color definitions here:
$t->tagConfigure('OddRow', -bg => 'orange', -fg => 'purple');
$t->tagConfigure('OddCol', -bg => 'brown', -fg => 'pink');
 
$t->colWidth( -2 => 7, -1 => 7, 1=> 5, 2 => 8, 4=> 14);
 
$label->pack( -expand => 1, -fill => 'both');
 
$t->pack(-expand => 1, -fill => 'both');
$button->pack(-expand => 1, -fill => 'both');

my $cnt;
sub Timer
{
    print "Now\n";
    my $variable = $t->cget( -var);

    $variable->{"4,0"}="Test".$cnt++;
    $t->activate("4,0");

    #$t->activate("4,0");
    #$t->colWidth( -2 => 7, -1 => 7, 1=> 5, 2 => 8, 4=> 14);
    #$t->update();
    $top->after(1000, \&Timer);
    return 1;
}

$top->after(1000, \&Timer);


Tk::MainLoop;

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In reply to TableMatrix asynch update of cells by olgo

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