Using wxPython, is it possible to nest a combobox inside other combobox in a similar way to how submenus are nested within menus? I need something similar for a wx.Combobox or a wx.Choice.
Or is there any widget with which this can be done?
Well, there are some possibilities:
wx.lib.combotreebox.ComboTreeBox
wx.combo.OwnerDrawnComboBox
# possibly also:
wx.lib.popupctl
You might also use a button (or some control) to invoke a PopupMenu. It may be confusing for the user though, and you might get into trouble when trying to position the Popup menu correctly. Generally speaking, I advice not to be too creative when making UI.
Have you seen wxpython demo? It is a nice showcase of all possible widgets. You can obtain it from here: https://extras.wxpython.org/wxPython4/extras/
Related
What's the best approach to mimic the Windows Explorer navigation bar in PyQt?. Perhaps a list of QComboBoxes as part of a parent class that concatenates the current item of each combo box to resolve the final path?
Is it possible to get a similar look by using stylesheets?
This is the object I need to mimic. I just want a theoretical approach about the best way to mimic it.
Thanks in advance
This is technically known as a breadcrumb widget.
There are multiple approaches to this. The closest emulation to Windows Explorer's behavior--leaving out the normally hidden line editor--involves a chain of widgets like so:
A top level parent QWidget-derived class with your implementation, which would have:
A QHBoxLayout
An arbitrary number of QComboBoxes
A QFileSystemModel from which to populate the combo boxes.
Alternatives
You could use a single QLabels with a series of hyperlinks divided by path separators if you don't care about drop-down behavior. Qt Creator does this.
If your data source is static and not as gigantic as the filesystem, you could use QToolButtons backed by a tree of QAction/QMenus. This is possibly a masochistic approach, given that you have to populate all of the actions and menus. Since that's what they are there for, though, it might be handy as part of a context-sensitive menubar or tab bar.
I was looking for such a widget too without any luck. So I've tried to implement this by myself. It's not finished yet and needs some more work, but here's the first result: breadcrumbsaddressbar.
It's based on QToolButton widgets with menu. Parts of address which don't fit are hidden like in Windows Explorer. Also the widget has auto-completion feature.
Update: there's also a C++ widget QtAddressBar which I have't tried.
I am quite new in JavaFX and I have a question about the design. I am creating my main menu in FXML using Scene Builder. I have various menu buttons and each of these have a sub-menu. These sub-menu options will open new windows. Is it possible to declare these submenu choices so they do not dissapear after I click on them? If so, can I declare it in my fxml or I have to do it programatically?
Also, is it possible to detach it from the menu button? I would like to have my menu choices around 1 cm away from the menu button itself.
Thank you
Suggested Alternate Solution
If you want more flexibility in positioning a popup menu after a button click as well as fine control over when the menu shows and hides, try using a Button + a ContextMenu rather than a MenuButton.
The relevant methods are:
contextMenu.show(anchorNode, side, dx, dy)
contextMenu.hide()
There is sample code for triggering a context menu on a button press button in the ContextMenu javadoc.
You might also need to monitor the context menu's showingProperty and in a listener show the menu again if the JavaFX system has decided to try and hide it after some user action and you still want the menu visible.
Answers to additional unrelated comments
OK It sounds logical, yet since Im not really good in JavaFX yet, your Idea is quite challenging.
It's not that hard to implement, but from your subsequent comments it sounds like it's probably not the user interface you want for your users anyway (which makes sense to me because the interface you describe in your question seems a little strange).
I thought If it would be easier to have a static xml that have various menu choices, lets say aligned to the right and then whenever I click one of the choices, a new FXML would be loaded in the middle of the screen holding buttons for a submenu?
That seems logical. Sounds like a JavaFX version of a traditional web page layout with a navigation menu on the side controlling a content pane in the center.
A Java only version of that is: How to have menus in java desktop application. You could adapt that to a FXML based version without too much difficulty.
You might also be interested in Managing Multiple Screens in JavaFX.
Also, any tutorial for beginners would be greatly appreciated. These Oracle ones dont make too much sense for me
If you are beginning JavaFX, I recommend using just the Java API portions of JavaFX until you become familiar with them, and then use FXML only after you are comfortable with the Java API.
Personally, I think the Oracle JavaFX Tutorials are excellent. The difficulty for beginners is that the tutorials are also part reference material, which complicates portions of them (especially the deployment related pieces).
If you prefer a different tutorial style see:
Makery JavaFX tutorial (good for beginners)
zenjava tutorials (more advanced)
I'm having a bit of trouble with custom action buttons in the honeycomb+ action bar. I'm adding a menu item that uses a custom layout (using the android:actionLayout attribute). The reason for the custom layout is that I want a button that has two lines of text that can be updated dynamically.
However, I still want this action button to operate like the other standard buttons. By this I mean that the background fades in when the button is selected, and fades out again if it is unselected, all in the style of the platform (the colour seems to differ between different platforms/devices - I've seen both grey and blue versions)
I've tried using the action button style for the custom layout:
style="#android:style/Widget.ActionButton"
and I've tried setting the background for the custom layout to:
android:background="?android:attr/actionBarItemBackground"
but to no avail, and I'm kind of trying things fairly randomly as I can't find any documentation on how to do this (or if indeed it is even possible).
I know I can approximate this behaviour myself by setting the background, but it would be nice if I could just set the item to behave like a normal action button in terms of how it appears when the user interacts with it.
Anyone have any ideas?
Thanks in advance!
Ah, sorry to answer my own question but I have just stumbled upon a way to do this. I was halfway there - you need your custom layout's style to inherit from ActionButton:
#android:style/Widget.ActionButton
but then you also need to make the layout clickable:
android:clickable="true"
for it to work. Using both of these makes the custom action buttons look just like the regular ones when you press them.
Hopefully that'll help someone trying to do this!
So I'm building a tool that allows a user to edit a whole bunch of preferences for various things. There are several groups of settings, too many to use a TabControl without creating arrow sliders to view all of the tabs, so I decided I would try and use a ListBox to list the groups of preferences, and then when they click on them, the settings that they can change show up to the right of the box.
I'm just not sure how to do this. Obviously it would invoke something in the OnSelectionChanged function of the ListBox, but I'm not sure where to go from there. Surely a dialog can have dynamic design, right? Would I mimic the creation of a tabbed-dialog where I create my designs and then bind them to the TabControl, and just do something similar for the ListBox? Again, it's not the ListBox itself that is dynamic. The user will click on "Settings A" from the ListBox, and to the right of the ListBox will be settings 1, 2, and 3 that each have textboxs/radios/checks.
Any hints on how I can accomplish this? I just think it looks nicer than having a whole bunch of tabs lined up across the top of the box. Thanks in advance to any brilliant minds who can help me out. I'm versed in C++, but I'm very much a beginner at VC++.
You can a vertical splitter with two panes:
one which contains the list
another one which contains the configuration dialogs you would normally use in a tab control
Each time the list selection changes you can load the appropriate dialog in the right pane. You can find a splitter tutorial here: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/wtl/wtl4mfc7.aspx
Currently working on a mobile app in J2ME and have questions with ChoiceGroup radio button answer options. Any suggestion on how to make it so that no default answer is selected? We've tried:
cg8.setSelectedIndex( -1, true ); But get an out of bounds exception error
and
cg8.setSelectedFlags( boolean[] ) with all false, but also get another error.
To get around this, we've also tried creating an invisible radio button and have that set as selected, but couldn't find a way to make an invisible radio button either.
Any thoughts or suggestions would be great appreciated!!
It sounds to me like the platform is enforcing an appropriate convention, although I must apologise for taking a purist standpoint here; this won't really answer your question.
Radio buttons are used when there are multiple exclusive choices, of which one must be made; it makes a certain amount of sense, therefore, for the user interface to ensure that something is always selected. Ideally, the initial selection in a radio group should always be a safe and sensible default.
As far as I know, the only way to not have any radio button pre-selected is to draw the control yourself. Re-implement a radio button list using a Canvas or a CustomItem.
It's a lot of work, unfortunately.
You should look into LWUIT as it may have an intermediary solution.