in reply to I seek illumination and knowledge

I think you are looking for a canvas set with linked scrollbars. Here is a general purpose example. You will notice, that you need to be extremely careful making sure the scrolled canvas regions are identical (pixel wise) in both directions. This means having a table setup, with the corners empty. If you try to make independent scrollbars and canveses, side by-side, you will find it difficult to get the exact pixel width to match and it will slightly throw off the scrolling at the extreme ends of the scrollregion. I also included a rudimentary example of binding to tags.....tags are the key to succesfull canvas useage. You will see as you move your mouse over the entries, that the colorboxes and the text interfere with one another........it is easily fixed by a better tag setup, but I leave it as is, to emphasize how the tags work. You can search groups.google.com for "Perl Tk canvas tags" and get many examples of clever tag usage.....it becomes a juggling act where you dynamically add/remove tags to items.
#!/usr/bin/perl use warnings; use strict; use Tk; # the left side canvas my @chs = (0..48); # ascending order my $num_channels = scalar @chs; my $mw = new MainWindow(); $mw->geometry("600x400+200+200"); $mw->fontCreate('big', -family=>'arial', -weight=>'bold', -size=>int(-18*18/14)); $mw->fontCreate('medium', -family=>'arial', -weight=>'bold', -size=>int(-12*12/10)); $mw->fontCreate('small', -family=>'arial', -weight=>'normal', -size=>int(-10*10/10)); my $topframe = $mw->Frame(-bg=>'grey45')->pack(); my $infolab = $topframe->Label(-text =>'Some Info', -bg=>'grey45', -fg=>'lightgreen', )->pack(); my $midframe = $mw->Frame(-bg=>'grey45')->pack(); my $midframel = $midframe->Frame(-bg=>'grey45') ->pack(-side=>'left',-expand=>1,-fill=>'y'); my $midframer = $midframe->Frame(-bg=>'grey45') ->pack(-side=>'right'); my $botframe = $mw->Frame(-bg=>'grey45')->pack(); my $canvast = $midframer->Scrolled('Canvas', -bg =>'lightyellow', -width=>2400, -height=>25, -scrollregion=>[-10,0,7250,25], -scrollbars =>'e', -xscrollincrement => 1, ) ->pack(-side=>'top'); my $canvasp = $midframer->Scrolled('Canvas', -bg =>'lightsteelblue', -width=>2400, -height=> 50 * $num_channels, -scrollregion=>[-10,0,7250,(50 * $num_channels)], -scrollbars=>'se', -xscrollincrement => 1, -yscrollincrement => 1, ) ->pack(-side=>'bottom',-fill=>'both'); #need real canvas for binding my $realcan = $canvasp->Subwidget("scrolled"); my $canvasd = $midframel->Canvas( -bg =>'grey45', -width=>75, -height=>25, ) ->pack(-side=>'top'); my $canvass = $midframel->Scrolled('Canvas', -bg =>'lightsteelblue', -width=>75, -height=> 50 * $num_channels, -scrollregion=>[0,0,75,(50 * $num_channels)], -scrollbars =>'s', -yscrollincrement => 1, ) ->pack(-side=>'top'); my $xscroll = $canvasp->Subwidget("xscrollbar"); my $yscroll = $canvasp->Subwidget("yscrollbar"); $xscroll->configure(-troughcolor =>'grey45', -activebackground =>'lightseagreen', -background =>'lightseagreen', -command => \&xscrollit, ); $yscroll->configure(-troughcolor =>'grey45', -activebackground =>'lightseagreen', -background => 'lightseagreen', -command => \&yscrollit, ); #hidden and disabled scrollbars my $xscroll1 = $canvass->Subwidget("xscrollbar"); my $yscroll1 = $canvast->Subwidget("yscrollbar"); $xscroll1->configure(-troughcolor =>'grey45', -activebackground =>'grey45', -background =>'grey45', -highlightcolor =>'grey45', -highlightbackground => 'grey45', -elementborderwidth => 0, -relief => 'flat', ); $yscroll1->configure(-troughcolor =>'grey45', -activebackground =>'grey45', -background =>'grey45', -highlightcolor =>'grey45', -highlightbackground => 'grey45', -elementborderwidth => 0, -relief => 'flat', ); ############################################################## #create timebar and markers for(0..24000){ if( $_ % 100 == 0){ $canvast->createLine($_,0,$_,10); $canvast->createText($_,20,-text=>$_); next; } } =head for(0..7200){ if( $_ % 300 == 0){ my $time = $_ / 300; my $padded = ("0" x (2-length( $time ))).$time; $canvast->createLine($_,0,$_,12,-width=> 4 ); $canvast->createText($_, 20, -text=> "$padded:00" ); }elsif( $_ % 150 == 0){ my $time = ($_ - 150) / 300; my $padded = ("0" x (2-length( $time ))).$time; $canvast->createLine($_,0,$_,10,-width => 2); $canvast->createText($_, 20, -text=> "$padded:30" ); }elsif( $_ % 75 == 0){ $canvast->createLine($_,0,$_,6,-width => 1); } } =cut #--create left side station boxes--------------------------------- #need to store y pixel locations to fill in data in an orderly manner my %slots; #used to hold locations for main data positions foreach my $slotnum (0 .. $num_channels){ my $ch = shift @chs; $slots{$slotnum}{'channel'} = $ch; $slots{$slotnum}{'top'} = 2 + $slotnum * 50; $slots{$slotnum}{'bottom'} = 48 + $slotnum * 50; $slots{$slotnum}{'toptext'} = 15 + $slotnum * 50; $slots{$slotnum}{'midtext'} = 30 + $slotnum * 50; $slots{$slotnum}{'bottext'} = 45 + $slotnum * 50; $canvass->createRectangle(0, 2 + $slotnum * 50, 75, 48 + $slotnum * + 50 , -fill =>'#f4dae4', ); $canvass->createText(38, 15 + $slotnum * 50, -text => $ch , -font => 'big', ); $canvass->createText(38, 35 + $slotnum * 50, -text => $ch , -font => 'medium', -fill => 'blue' ); } ######################################### # now fill in some data foreach my $slotnum (0 .. $num_channels){ for(0..24000){ if( $_ % 100 == 0){ # actually you should do a bbox of the text below # to find the rect boundaries, but I cheat here # and hardwire in a 60 pixel width my $rect = $canvasp->createRectangle($_- 30 ,$slots{$slotnum}{ +'top'} - 2, $_+ 30 ,$slots{$slotnum}{'bottom +'} - 2, -fill =>'#dddddd', -tags => ['rect',$_,$slotnum], ); my $text = $canvasp->createText( $_, $slots{$slotnum}{'midtex +t'}, -text=> $slotnum.'-'.$_, -tags => ['text',$_,$slotnum] ); next; } } } # add some bindings $realcan->bind("rect", "<Enter>", sub { $realcan->itemconfigure("current", -fill => '#ffffff'); + }); # When the mouse is not over, color it grey. $realcan->bind("rect", "<Leave>", sub { $realcan->itemconfigure("current", -fill => '#dddddd'); + }); #get info on left mouse click $realcan->bind('rect',"<1>",sub { my $item = $realcan->find('withtag','current'); my (@tags) = $realcan->gettags($item); print join '-',@tags,"\n"; }); MainLoop; ######### sub xscrollit{ my $fraction = $_[1]; $canvast->xviewMoveto($fraction); $canvasp->xviewMoveto($fraction); } ######################################## sub yscrollit{ my $fraction = $_[1]; $canvass->yviewMoveto($fraction); $canvasp->yviewMoveto($fraction); }

I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth Remember How Lucky You Are

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: I seek illumination and knowledge
by deesler (Novice) on Dec 17, 2008 at 02:09 UTC
    Zentara,

    I just noticed that I got a reply.

    Thank you very much for the example.

    Deesler

Re^2: I seek illumination and knowledge
by deesler (Novice) on Jan 21, 2009 at 01:13 UTC
    Please all, forgive me, but I am apparently too stupid to post a private question to zentara. Zentara - Your example is exactly what I need. Thank you very much. However, I recently found out that my script my also have to run on Windows. When I try your test script on Windows, I see some odd behavior. (Note: this is NOT a complaint, just a request for your superior knowledge in Perl/Tk.) First, the hidden scrollbars appear, but don't do much. Second, the canvas that you called "canvast" is much taller, throwing off the carefull positioning. I believe that since it has a scrollbar, it is forced to the "minimum height" of a windows scrollbar. I tried to "cget" the height of "canvast" so as to increase the height of the top left canvas, but don't seem to be getting anywhere. Do you have any wisdow either as to how to make the scrollbars disappear, or how to re-align the two upper canvasses ? Thanks for helping someone so stupid.
      Hi, no problem. When I first tried setting this up myself, there was a question of whether to use Scrolled Canvases, or make separate plain canvases and scrollbars, and link them manually. Then I hit the scrollbar alignment problem, as you are experiencing on Windows, when trying the manual linking approach. On linux, they aligned with Scrolled-Canvases, so I went with that. But here is my original manual attempt, which may help you. It has other glitches on linux, like when you scroll to the extreme ends of the scrollbar regions, it loses linearity. But it may work better on Windows.

      For what it's worth, I originally was trying to copy the Table functionality of Gtk2, to align everything, see Gtk2 linked scrolled Canvases in table for a Gtk2 version of this using Tables. Tables are the way to go, and if you can switch to Perl/Gtk2 you may be better off. CamelBox installs and works well for me on my Vista Basic testbox, but I normally don't use Windows at all.

      So here is an alternate Tk method. I spent all afternoon trying this stuff out, so I don't care to try and jump in to fix the Linux/Win32 incompatibilities....but you may be luckier. Like I said, if you want easy Linux/Win32 compatibility, go with the Tables of Gtk2.

      #!/usr/bin/perl use warnings; use strict; use Tk; my $mw = new MainWindow(); $mw->geometry("600x400+200+200"); #for xscroll, must be packed before midframe to be visible my $botframe = $mw->Frame(-bg=>'grey45') ->pack(-fill=>'x',-side=>'bottom'); my $midframe = $mw->Frame(-bg=>'grey45')->pack(); my $midframel = $midframe->Frame(-bg=>'grey45') ->pack(-side=>'left',-expand=>1,-fill=>'y'); my $midframer = $midframe->Frame(-bg=>'grey45') ->pack(-side=>'right'); my $num_channels = 40; my $canvasp; my $canvast = $midframer->Canvas( -bg =>'pale goldenrod', -width=>2400, -height=>25, #need to set scrollregion with a bit extra to ensure #endpoint accuracy. See xscrollit sub -scrollregion=>[-10,0,7250,25], -xscrollincrement => 1, )->pack(-side=>'top'); #for canvasp and yscroll my $midframer1 = $midframer->Frame(-bg=>'grey45') ->pack(-side=>'top'); my $yscroll = $midframer1->Scrollbar( -orient => 'vertical', -command => \&yscrollit, -troughcolor =>'grey45', -activebackground =>'lightseagreen', -background => 'lightseagreen', )->pack(-side=>'right',-fill=>'y'); my $canvasxsd = $botframe->Canvas( #dummy filler -bg =>'grey45', -width=>75, -height=>25, -borderwidth=>0, ) ->pack(-side=>'left'); my $xscroll = $botframe->Scrollbar( -orient => 'horizontal', -command => \&xscrollit , -troughcolor =>'grey45', -activebackground =>'lightseagreen', -background => 'lightseagreen', )->pack(-side=>'right', -fill=>'x',-expand =>1); $canvasp = $midframer1->Canvas( -bg =>'lightsteelblue', -width=>2400, -height=> 50 * $num_channels, -scrollregion=>[-10,0,7250,(33 * $num_channels)], -xscrollincrement => 1, -yscrollincrement => 1, -xscrollcommand => [ 'set', $xscroll ], -yscrollcommand => [ 'set', $yscroll ], ) ->pack(-side=>'left');#,-fill=>'both'); my $canvasd = $midframel->Canvas( #top of left frame dummy filler -bg =>'grey45', -width=>75, -height=>25, -borderwidth =>0, )->pack(-side=>'top'); my $canvass = $midframel->Canvas( #left frame canvas -bg =>'lightseagreen', -width=>75, -height=> 50 * $num_channels, -scrollregion=>[0,0,75,(33 * $num_channels)], -yscrollincrement => 1, ) ->pack(-side=>'top'); #fill in some sample data to see scrolling action for( 0 .. 33 * $num_channels){ $canvass->createText(38, 10 + $_ * 33, -text => "C $_" , ); } #set up top frame canvas... a timeline for(0..7200){ if( $_ % 50 == 0){ $canvast->createLine($_,0,$_,12,-width=> 4,-tags=>['tick'] ); $canvast->createText($_, 20, -text=> $_,-tags=>['tick'] ); } } #set up main frame some canvas data foreach my $y (0..39){ foreach my $x (0..7200){ next unless ( $x % 5 == 0); next if 20*$x > 7200; $canvasp->createText($x * 20, 8 + $y * 33, -text=> 20*$x.'-'.$y, -tags=>['data'] ); } } MainLoop; ################################### sub xscrollit{ my $fraction = $_[1]; $canvast->xviewMoveto($fraction); $canvasp->xviewMoveto($fraction); } ################# sub yscrollit{ my $fraction = $_[1]; $canvass->yviewMoveto($fraction); $canvasp->yviewMoveto($fraction); } ##############

      I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth Remember How Lucky You Are
        Thanks once more, I really appreciate it (We don't do too many of this type of GUI around here, so when I get stuck, not too many people to ask.)

        Can you point me to the instructions on the Perl Monks website that shows me how to send you a private message, so that I don't have to subject everyone to my ignorance (just you) ?

        I have found several places that look promising, but none of them gives me an opportunity to enter the actual text of a message.