Tk: listen for event generated anywhere in program

blueberryCoffee has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi everyone, I have searched through MTK and the pod docs and experimented myself but I'm still stumped. The code below shows that if I bind a widget to a virtual event it only responds to the event if it (the widget bound to the event) generates the event. My goal is to have the widget respond to the event no matter who/what generated the event. Am I on the right track?

#!/usr/bin/perl

use Tk;
use strict;

my $app = new MainWindow;
   my $entry  = $app->Entry()->pack();
   $entry->bind('<<customEvent>>' => \&respondToEvent);
   $app->Button(-text => 'gen event by app',
                -command => [\&sendEvent, 0])->pack();
   $app->Button(-text => 'gen event by label',
                -command => [\&sendEvent, 1])->pack();
MainLoop;

sub sendEvent {
   if(@_[0]) {
      # have entry generate event - this works
      $entry->eventGenerate('<<customEvent>>');
   } else {
      # have mainwindow generate event - this produces nill
      $app->eventGenerate('<<customEvent>>');
   }
}

sub respondToEvent {
   print "Responding to Event!";
}
[download]

Comment on Tk: listen for event generated anywhere in program Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Tk: listen for event generated anywhere in program by zejames (Hermit) on Dec 14, 2004 at 09:45 UTC
From the Tk `bind` documentation : ... $widget->bind(tag,sequence,callback); ... If a tag is the name of an internal window the binding applies to that window. If the tag is the name of a toplevel window the binding applies to the toplevel window and all its internal windows. If the tag is the name of a class of widgets, such as Tk::Button, the binding applies to all widgets in that class; If tag has the value all, the binding applies to all windows in the application. So just use the first argument of the `bind` call : #!/usr/bin/perl use Tk; use strict; my $app = new MainWindow; my $entry = $app->Entry()->pack(); $entry->bind('all', '<<customEvent>>' => \&respondToEvent); $app->Button(-text => 'gen event by app', -command => [\&sendEvent, 0])->pack(); $app->Button(-text => 'gen event by label', -command => [\&sendEvent, 1])->pack(); MainLoop; sub sendEvent { if(@_[0]) { # have entry generate event - this works $entry->eventGenerate('<<customEvent>>'); } else { # have mainwindow generate event - this produces nill $app->eventGenerate('<<customEvent>>'); } } sub respondToEvent { print "Responding to Event!"; } [download] -- zejames 100th post ! Champaign !	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: Tk: listen for event generated anywhere in program by blueberryCoffee (Scribe) on Dec 14, 2004 at 10:12 UTC
Thank you, thankyou, and thanks to you. I had spent all my time going over the event documentation, thinking it was the way the event was called rather than the actual binding. The answer was so easy, I can't believe I missed that. Thanks again.	[reply]