Volume 6A: Motif Programming Manual

Layout of a dialog

Motif dialog widgets handle this layout automatically. When you create your own dialog, you are responsible for

managing the layout. We recommend using the PanedWindow widget as the manager widget for a dialog. The

PanedWindow supports vertically stacked windows, each of which may or may not be resizable, which allows you to

create the suggested layout. If you use a PanedWindow as the manager widget for a dialog, it can manage two other

managers that act as the control and action areas. The control area can be resizable, while the action area is not. The

PanedWindow also provides a separator between the panes, which fulfills the Style Guide recommendation that there

be a Separator widget between the control and action areas.

Of course you can use whatever manager widget you like for a dialog. If you use a BulletinBoard or a Form widget,

you may be able to take advantage of the special interaction these widgets have with a DialogShell. The RowColumn

widget can also lay out its children vertically, so you could use one to manage the control and action areas of a dialog.

The difficulty with using a RowColumn involves resizing, in that there is no way to tell the widget to keep the bottom

partition a constant height while allowing the top to fluctuate as necessary. The same problem can also arise with

other manager widgets, so you need to be sure that the resizing behavior is ...