Volume 6A: Motif Programming Manual

1.2, the query_geometry method has been implemented for all Motif widgets. Setting extents is useful, since

without them, the user can adjust a PanedWindow so that the size of a widget is unreasonable or unaesthetic. If you

are setting the extents for a scrolled object (ScrolledText or ScrolledList), you do not need to be as concerned about

the maximum extent, since these objects handle larger sizes appropriately. Minimum states are certainly legitimate

though. For example, you could use the height of a font as a minimum extent for Text or a List.

The PanedWindow widget can be useful for building your own dialogs because you can control the size of the action

area. The action area is always at the bottom of the dialog and its size should never be changed. See Chapter 7,

Custom Dialogs, for a complete discussion of how a PanedWindow can be used in in this manner.

9.7.2 Sashes

The Sashes in a PanedWindow widget are in fact widgets, even though they are not described or defined publicly.

While the Motif Style Guide says that the Sash is part of the PanedWindow widget, the Motif toolkit defines the object

privately, which means that technically the Sash is not supported and it may change in the future. However, it is

possible to get a handle to a Sash if you absolutely need one. In order to retrieve a Sash, you need to include the

header file <Xm/SashP.h>. The fact that the file ends in an uppercase P indicates that it is a private header file, which

means that an application program should not ...