You are better off sticking with a nesting of more standard widgets, in my experience.

zentara

Thanks for the feedback. Your program looks interesting. My current approach is to use a text entry widget to ask the user to provide info on the records to be edited (UserCode?, Between what dates?, etc). Based on user provided parameters, I'll build and submit the SQL query and return the list of pontential candidate data records. From that list I'll have the user click on the one they wish to edit which will move it into another "editing" grid. When entries are completed there, the user will click an "save changes" button. At that point the program will build and submit the SQL update via the ODBC connection and prompt for another set of general parameters.

Given that I'm addressing an MS SQL database using Win32::ODBC in a Windows XP user environment, I'm not sure yours is the tool for the current project.

Rest assured I'll be downloading it and poaching any good ideas I discover within your code.

Thanks again for the feedback and for your willingness to share your skills.

Oh, and I appreciated your comment...

"You are better off sticking with a nesting of more standard widgets, in my experience."

...it reinforced a growing suspicion I had.

Respectfully

Generator

When entries are completed there, the user will click an "save changes" button.

If you dig deep into my program, you can automatically submit the SQL update, when you change tabs, if an md5sum change was detected in the fields. No need to have a Save Changes button.(This avoids lost changes if you accidently switch tabs :-) ) Do your automatic magic in the "raisecmd" and "lowercmd" callbacks of the Notebook widgets. But you are probably starting to figure this out. :-)

FWIW, Tk the Tk Text widget dosn't have a "is_edited" flag, so you need to rely on md5sums, or something similar. However, Gtk2 does has an "has_been_edited" signal.

---

I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth.
Old Perl Programmer Haiku

tgdemo_simple - A very simple demonstration of the tixGrid widget

Thank you! That is just what I was looking for. I'm especially pleased that it is so well #doc-commented.

Generator

Take a look at Tk::TableMatrix. It's included in the Activestate distribution, and has more documentation than Tk::TixGrid. Here's some example code with notes, extracted from one of my projects. This should give you a good start with the widget, but be sure to read the docs, there's a lot more to it.

# set up the Tk::TableMatrix grid

    my $grid = $mw->Scrolled('TableMatrix',
        -scrollbars => 'osoe',
        -sparsearray => 0,
        -titlecols => 1, # first col does not scroll
        -titlerows => 1, # top row does not scroll
        -roworigin => -1, # first scrolling (data) row is 0
        -colorigin => -1, # first scrolling (data) col is 0
        -padx => 2,
        -colwidth => 20,
        -anchor => 'w',
        -background => 'white',
        -resizeborders => 'none',
        -justify => 'left',
        -browsecommand => \&clickLeft,
        )->pack(
            -side =>'right',
            -expand => 1,
            -fill => 'both',
            );


# collect the data

    # column labels
    my @colLabels = qw( column labels here ... etc );
    # from database
    my $data = $dbh->selectall_arrayref($sql);
    # number of columns
    my $cols = scalar @{$data->[0]};
    # number of rows
    my $rows = 20;


# populate the grid with data

    # hashref to hold Tk type list for grid values
    my $vals = {};

    # add column labels to first row
    for (0..$cols -1){
        $vals->{"-1,$_"} = $colLabels[$_];
    }
    # add data to subsequent rows
    for my $ro (0..$rows -1){
        # put row numbering into first column
        $vals->{"$ro,-1"} = $ro +1;

        # put data from Perl array ref into Tk list
        for my $co (0..$cols -1){       
            $vals->{"$ro,$co"} = $data->[$ro][$co];
        }
    }

    # configure binds Tk list to the grid
    $grid->configure(
        -rows => $rows +1,
        -cols => $cols +1,
        -variable => $vals,
    );
[download]

hangon

Thanks for the suggestion. I will certainly explore TK::TableMatrix as an option.

I haven't seen it rendered yet as I need to edit your snippet to beat the errors its throwing when run in isolation from your original project.

Thanks for your willingness to share and for the recommendation of the module.

Respectfully,

generator

Thanks for the suggestion. I had not been aware of the existence of Win32::GUI until you mentioned it here. I have since taken a look and it appears promising.

I'm new to Perl having spent only the last 4 months applying it to several projects. PerlMonks is a lifesaver and I particularly appreciate your willingness to give some informed guidance in the selection of appropriate modules for my current project.

Mahalo,

Generator