Widget Types

The IDL GUIBuilder toolbar allows you many options for creating widgets of various types. The following table contains a short listing and descriptions of the widget types you can create using the toolbar:

Table 14-1: Widget Types and Descriptions

Table 14-1: Widget Types and Descriptions
Widget	Description
Base	Creates a container for a group of widgets within a top-level base container (which is contained in the IDL GUIBuilder window).
Button	Creates a push button. The easiest way to allow a user to interact with your application is through a button click.
Radio Button	Creates a toggle button that is always grouped within a base container.
Checkbox	Creates a checkbox, which you can use either as a single toggle button to indicate a particular state is on or off or as a list of choices from which the user can select none to all choices.
Text	Creates a text widget.
Label	Creates a label.
Horizontal and Vertical Sliders	Creates a slider with a horizontal or vertical layout.
Droplist	Creates a droplist widget, which you can use to present a scrollable list of items from which the user can select.
Listbox	Creates a list widget, which you can use to present a scrollable list of items from which the user can select.
Draw Area	Creates a draw area, which you can use to display graphics in your application.
Table	Creates a table widget, which you can use to display data in a row and column format.
Tab	Creates a tab widget on which different "pages" (base widgets and their children) can be displayed by first selecting the appropriate tab.
Tree	Creates a tree widget, which presents a hierarchical view that can be used to organize a wide variety of data structures and information.

Widget Properties

For each widget type, there is a set of attribute values and a set of event values you can set using the IDL GUIBuilder Properties dialog. When you select a widget in the IDL GUIBuilder window or in the Widget Browser, the Properties dialog is updated to contain the properties for the selected widget. These properties include those common to all widgets and those specific to the selected widget.

On the Attributes tab of the Properties dialog (right click on the draw area, and choose Properties. This action opens the Properties dialog for the draw area) the attributes are set to default values and are arranged in the following order:

On the Events tab, the possible events for a widget are listed in alphabetical order, with the common and the widget-specific events combined. By default, no event values are set initially. When you enter a routine name for an event property, you are responsible for making sure that event procedure exists. IDL does not validate the existence of the specified routine.