pack - Geometry manager that packs around edges of cavity
pack option arg ?arg ...?
The pack command is used to communicate with the packer, a
geometry manager that arranges the children of a parent by packing them in
order around the edges of the parent. The pack command can have any
of several forms, depending on the option argument:
- pack slave
?slave ...? ?options?
- If the first argument to pack is a window name (any value starting
with “.”), then the command is processed in the same way as
pack configure.
- pack configure
slave ?slave ...? ?options?
- The arguments consist of the names of one or more slave windows followed
by pairs of arguments that specify how to manage the slaves. See THE
PACKER ALGORITHM below for details on how the options are used by the
packer. The following options are supported:
- -after
other
- Other must the name of another window. Use its master as the master
for the slaves, and insert the slaves just after other in the
packing order.
- -anchor
anchor
- Anchor must be a valid anchor position such as n or
sw; it specifies where to position each slave in its parcel.
Defaults to center.
- -before
other
- Other must the name of another window. Use its master as the master
for the slaves, and insert the slaves just before other in the
packing order.
- -expand
boolean
- Specifies whether the slaves should be expanded to consume extra space in
their master. Boolean may have any proper boolean value, such as
1 or no. Defaults to 0.
- -fill
style
- If a slave's parcel is larger than its requested dimensions, this option
may be used to stretch the slave. Style must have one of the
following values:
- none
- Give the slave its requested dimensions plus any internal padding
requested with -ipadx or -ipady. This is the default.
- x
- Stretch the slave horizontally to fill the entire width of its parcel
(except leave external padding as specified by -padx).
- y
- Stretch the slave vertically to fill the entire height of its parcel
(except leave external padding as specified by -pady).
- both
- Stretch the slave both horizontally and vertically.
- -in other
- Insert the slave(s) at the end of the packing order for the master window
given by other.
- -ipadx
amount
- Amount specifies how much horizontal internal padding to leave on
each side of the slave(s). Amount must be a valid screen distance,
such as 2 or .5c. It defaults to 0.
- -ipady
amount
- Amount specifies how much vertical internal padding to leave on
each side of the slave(s). Amount defaults to 0.
- -padx
amount
- Amount specifies how much horizontal external padding to leave on
each side of the slave(s). Amount may be a list of two values to
specify padding for left and right separately. Amount defaults to
0.
- -pady
amount
- Amount specifies how much vertical external padding to leave on
each side of the slave(s). Amount may be a list of two values to
specify padding for top and bottom separately. Amount defaults to
0.
- -side
side
- Specifies which side of the master the slave(s) will be packed against.
Must be left, right, top, or bottom. Defaults
to top.
If no -in, -after or -before option is
specified then each of the slaves will be inserted at the end of the packing
list for its parent unless it is already managed by the packer (in which
case it will be left where it is). If one of these options is specified then
all the slaves will be inserted at the specified point. If any of the slaves
are already managed by the geometry manager then any unspecified options for
them retain their previous values rather than receiving default values.
- pack forget
slave ?slave ...?
- Removes each of the slaves from the packing order for its master
and unmaps their windows. The slaves will no longer be managed by the
packer.
- pack info
slave
- Returns a list whose elements are the current configuration state of the
slave given by slave in the same option-value form that might be
specified to pack configure. The first two elements of the list are
“-in master” where master is the
slave's master.
- pack propagate
master ?boolean?
- If boolean has a true boolean value such as 1 or on
then propagation is enabled for master, which must be a window name
(see GEOMETRY PROPAGATION below). If boolean has a false
boolean value then propagation is disabled for master. In either of
these cases an empty string is returned. If boolean is omitted then
the command returns 0 or 1 to indicate whether propagation
is currently enabled for master. Propagation is enabled by
default.
- pack slaves
master
- Returns a list of all of the slaves in the packing order for
master. The order of the slaves in the list is the same as their
order in the packing order. If master has no slaves then an empty
string is returned.
For each master the packer maintains an ordered list of slaves
called the packing list. The -in, -after, and
-before configuration options are used to specify the master for each
slave and the slave's position in the packing list. If none of these options
is given for a slave then the slave is added to the end of the packing list
for its parent.
The packer arranges the slaves for a master by scanning the
packing list in order. At the time it processes each slave, a rectangular
area within the master is still unallocated. This area is called the
cavity; for the first slave it is the entire area of the master.
For each slave the packer carries out the following steps:
- [1]
- The packer allocates a rectangular parcel for the slave along the
side of the cavity given by the slave's -side option. If the side
is top or bottom then the width of the parcel is the width of the cavity
and its height is the requested height of the slave plus the -ipady
and -pady options. For the left or right side the height of the
parcel is the height of the cavity and the width is the requested width of
the slave plus the -ipadx and -padx options. The parcel may
be enlarged further because of the -expand option (see
EXPANSION below)
- [2]
- The packer chooses the dimensions of the slave. The width will normally be
the slave's requested width plus twice its -ipadx option and the
height will normally be the slave's requested height plus twice its
-ipady option. However, if the -fill option is x or
both then the width of the slave is expanded to fill the width of
the parcel, minus twice the -padx option. If the -fill
option is y or both then the height of the slave is expanded
to fill the width of the parcel, minus twice the -pady option.
- [3]
- The packer positions the slave over its parcel. If the slave is smaller
than the parcel then the -anchor option determines where in the
parcel the slave will be placed. If -padx or -pady is
non-zero, then the given amount of external padding will always be left
between the slave and the edges of the parcel.
Once a given slave has been packed, the area of its parcel is
subtracted from the cavity, leaving a smaller rectangular cavity for the
next slave. If a slave does not use all of its parcel, the unused space in
the parcel will not be used by subsequent slaves. If the cavity should
become too small to meet the needs of a slave then the slave will be given
whatever space is left in the cavity. If the cavity shrinks to zero size,
then all remaining slaves on the packing list will be unmapped from the
screen until the master window becomes large enough to hold them again.
If a master window is so large that there will be extra space left
over after all of its slaves have been packed, then the extra space is
distributed uniformly among all of the slaves for which the -expand
option is set. Extra horizontal space is distributed among the expandable
slaves whose -side is left or right, and extra vertical
space is distributed among the expandable slaves whose -side is
top or bottom.
The packer normally computes how large a master must be to just
exactly meet the needs of its slaves, and it sets the requested width and
height of the master to these dimensions. This causes geometry information
to propagate up through a window hierarchy to a top-level window so that the
entire sub-tree sizes itself to fit the needs of the leaf windows. However,
the pack propagate command may be used to turn off propagation for
one or more masters. If propagation is disabled then the packer will not set
the requested width and height of the packer. This may be useful if, for
example, you wish for a master window to have a fixed size that you
specify.
The master for each slave must either be the slave's parent (the
default) or a descendant of the slave's parent. This restriction is
necessary to guarantee that the slave can be placed over any part of its
master that is visible without danger of the slave being clipped by its
parent.
If the master for a slave is not its parent then you must make
sure that the slave is higher in the stacking order than the master.
Otherwise the master will obscure the slave and it will appear as if the
slave has not been packed correctly. The easiest way to make sure the slave
is higher than the master is to create the master window first: the most
recently created window will be highest in the stacking order. Or, you can
use the raise and lower commands to change the stacking order
of either the master or the slave.
# Make the widgets
label .t -text "This widget is at the top" -bg red
label .b -text "This widget is at the bottom" -bg green
label .l -text "Left\nHand\nSide"
label .r -text "Right\nHand\nSide"
text .mid
.mid insert end "This layout is like Java's BorderLayout"
# Lay them out
pack .t -side top -fill x
pack .b -side bottom -fill x
pack .l -side left -fill y
pack .r -side right -fill y
pack .mid -expand 1 -fill both
geometry manager, location, packer, parcel, propagation, size