After a whole day of frustrating “experimentation” with no good results,
I was ready to give up and ask this question:
How do I place two vertical sets of widgets (inside of a left and right
frame), two horizontal set of widgets (inside of a top and bottom frame)
and one set of rectanges in a square grid (inside of a middle center
canvas in a middle center frame) to control the location of my “sets”?
But then I got angry (both with myself and Ruby/Tk) and became
determined to figure it out without asking.
It took me hours and hours, but I fainally “nailed” it! The source of
my frustration was not realizing that the (:x,:y) coordinates were
relative to the parent widgets’ origin (in my example these are TkRoot
and TkFrames).
If you want to take a look (where I’ve use :background, :borderwidth and
:relief options to make the frames and canvas stand out), here is the
Ruby code:
require “tk”
root=TkRoot.new(:title=>'Ruby/Tk Geometry, Frame, Canvas, ’ +
‘and Widget Meanderings’, :geometry=>‘705x700’)
packer1 = { :fill=>:none }
Note: These (x,y) coordinates are relative to the parent widget’s
(TkRoot’s or TkFrame’s) origin
placer1 = { :x=>0, :y=>0 }; placer2 = { :x=>0, :y=>600 }
placer3 = { :x=>0, :y=>40 }; placer4 = { :x=>100, :y=>100 };
placer5 = { :x=>600, :y=>100 }; placer6 = { :x=>0, :y=>100 }
topFrame = TkFrame.new(root, :width=>705, :height=>100,
:borderwidth=>5, :relief=>:groove, :background=>:pink).place(placer1)
topFrameButton1 = TkButton.new(topFrame, :text=>‘TFButton 1’).
place(placer1)
middleLeftFrame = TkFrame.new(root, :width=>100, :height=>500,
:borderwidth=>5, :relief=>:groove, :background=>:cyan).place(placer6)
middleLeftFrameButton1 = TkButton.new(middleLeftFrame, :text=>
‘MLFButton 1’).place(placer1)
middleLeftFrameButton2 = TkButton.new(middleLeftFrame, :text=>
‘MLFButton 2’).place(placer3)
middleCenterFrame = TkFrame.new(root, :width=>500, :height=>500,
:borderwidth=>5, :relief=>:groove, :background=>:blue).place(placer4)
middleCenterCanvas = TkCanvas.new(middleCenterFrame, :width=>477,
:height=>477, :borderwidth=>5, :relief=>:groove,
:background=>:yellow).
pack(packer1)
middleCenterCanvasButton1 = TkButton.new(middleCenterCanvas, :text=>
‘MCCButton 1’).place(placer1)
middleRightFrame = TkFrame.new(root, :width=>105, :height=>500,
:borderwidth=>5, :relief=>:groove, :background=>:green).place(placer5)
middleRightFrameButton1 = TkButton.new(middleRightFrame, :text=>
‘MRFButton 1’).place(placer1)
bottomFrame = TkFrame.new(root, :width=>705, :height=>100,
:borderwidth=>5, :relief=>:groove,
:background=>:orange).place(placer2)
bottomFrameButton1 = TkButton.new(bottomFrame, :text=>‘BFButton 1’).
place(placer1)
ev_quit = TkVirtualEvent.new(‘Control-c’, ‘Control-q’, ‘q’)
Tk.root.bind(ev_quit, proc{Tk.exit}).focus
Tk.mainloop
