Tutorial
Inti Logo
« Toolbar
 Menus »

Notebooks

The NoteBook Widget is a collection of "pages" that overlap each other, each page contains different information with only one page visible at a time. This widget has become more common lately in GUI programming, and it is a good way to show blocks of similar information that warrant separation in their display.

The first method you will need to know, as you can probably guess by now, is the constructor used to create a new notebook widget.

Notebook();

Once the notebook has been created, there are a number of methods that operate on the notebook widget. Let's look at them individually.

The first one we will look at is how to position the page indicators. These page indicators or "tabs" as they are referred to, can be positioned in four ways: top, bottom, left, or right.

void set_tab_pos(Gtk::PositionType pos);

The pos argument can be one of the following values in the Gtk::PositionType enumeration:
Next we will look at how to add pages to the notebook. There are three ways to add pages to the NoteBook - append, prepend and insert. Let's look at the first two together as they are quite similar.

void append_page(Gtk::Widget& child, Gtk::Widget *tab_label = 0, Gtk::Widget *menu_label = 0);

void append_page(Gtk::Widget& child, const String& tab_label, const String& menu_label = 0);

void prepend_page(Gtk::Widget& child, Gtk::Widget *tab_label = 0, Gtk::Widget *menu_label = 0);

void prepend_page(Gtk::Widget& child, const String& tab_label, const String& menu_label = 0);

There are two overloaded versions of each method. These methods add pages to the notebook by inserting them from the back of the notebook (append), or the front of the notebook (prepend). The child argument is the widget that is placed within the notebook page, tab_label is the label for the page being added and menu_label is the label to use for the page-switch menu, if that is enabled. The child widget must be created separately, and is typically a set of options setup within one of the other container widgets, such as a table.

In the first append and prepend page methods tab_label and menu_label are pointers to the widgets that are to be used as the page and page-switch menu labels. The second append and prepend page methods create these widgets for you and sets tab_label and menu_label  as the label text.

The final method for adding a page to the notebook contains all of the properties of the previous two, but it allows you to specify what position you want the page to be in the notebook.

void insert_page(Gtk::Widget& child, int position, Gtk::Widget *tab_label = 0, Gtk::Widget *menu_label = 0);

void insert_page(Gtk::Widget& child, int position, const String& tab_label, const String& menu_label = 0);

The parameters are the same as the append and prepend page methods except there is an extra parameter, position. This parameter is used to specify what place this page will be inserted into, the first page having position zero.

Now that we know how to add a page, lets see how we can remove a page from the notebook.

void remove_page(int page_num);

This method takes the page specified by page_num and removes it from the widget.

To find out what the current page is in a notebook use the method:

int get_current_page() const;

These next two methods are simple calls to move the current notebook page forward or backward. Simply call the respective method for the notebook widget you wish to operate on. Note: When the NoteBook is currently on the last page, and Gtk::Notebook::next_page() is called, the notebook will wrap back to the first page. Likewise, if the NoteBook is on the first page, and Gtk::Notebook::prev_page() is called, the notebook will wrap to the last page.

void next_page();

void prev_page();

This next method sets the "active" page. If you wish the notebook to be opened to page 5 for example, you would use this method. Without using this method the notebook defaults to the first page.
void set_current_page(int page_num);

The next two methods add or remove the notebook page border and the notebook tabs respectively.

void set_show_border(bool show_border);

void set_show_tabs(bool show_tabs);

The next method is useful when the you have a large number of pages, and the tabs don't fit on the page. It allows the tabs to be scrolled through using two arrow buttons.

void set_scrollable(bool scrollable);

Now let's look at an example. This small program creates a window with a notebook and six buttons. The notebook contains 11 pages, added in three different ways, appended, inserted, and prepended. The buttons allow you rotate the tab positions, add/remove the tabs and border, remove a page, change pages in both a forward and backward manner, and exit the program.

Notebook

The header file for notebook is notebook.h:

#include<inti/main.h>
#include <inti/core.h>
#include <inti/gtk/notebook.h>

using namespace Inti;

class Notebook : public Gtk::Notebook
{
public:
    Notebook();
    virtual ~Notebook();

    void on_rotate_book();
    void on_tabsborder_book();
    void on_remove_book();
};

class NotebookWindow : public Gtk::Window
{
public:
    virtual ~NotebookWindow();
};

and the source file is notebook.cc:

#include"notebook.h"
#include <inti/gtk/table.h>
#include <inti/gtk/frame.h>
#include <inti/gtk/label.h>
#include <inti/gtk/checkbutton.h>

// Notebook

Notebook::Notebook()
{
    set_tab_pos(Gtk::POS_TOP);
    show();
}

Notebook::~Notebook()
{
}

void
Notebook::on_rotate_book()
{
    // This function rotates the position of the tabs
    set_tab_pos((Gtk::PositionType)((gtk_notebook()->tab_pos + 1) % 4));
}

void
Notebook::on_tabsborder_book()
{
    // Add/Remove the page tabs and the borders
    int tval = false;
    int bval = false;

    if (!get_show_tabs())
        tval = true;
    if (!get_show_border())
        bval = true;

    set_show_tabs(tval);
    set_show_border(bval);
}

void
Notebook::on_remove_book()
{
    // Remove a page from the notebook
    int page = get_current_page();
    remove_page(page);

    // Need to refresh the widget -- This forces the widget to redraw itself.
    queue_draw();
}

// NotebookWindow

NotebookWindow::NotebookWindow()
{
    set_border_width(10);

    Gtk::Table *table = new Gtk::Table(3, 6);
    add(*table);

    // Create a new notebook, place the position of the tabs
    Notebook *notebook = new Notebook;
    table->attach(*notebook, 0, 6, 0, 1);

    // Let's append a bunch of pages to the notebook
    Gtk::Label *label;
    for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++)
    {
        String s1 = String::format("Append Frame %d", i + 1);
        String s2 = String::format("Page %d", i + 1);
        Gtk::Frame *frame = new Gtk::Frame(s1);
        frame->set_border_width(10);
        frame->set_size_request(100, 75);

        label = new Gtk::Label(s1);
        frame->add(*label);

        label = new Gtk::Label(s2);
        notebook->append_page(*frame, label);
    }

    // Now let's add a page to a specific spot
    Gtk::CheckButton *checkbutton = new Gtk::CheckButton("Check me please!");
    checkbutton->set_size_request(100, 75);

    label = new Gtk::Label("Add page");
    notebook->insert_page(*checkbutton, 2, label);

    // Now finally let's prepend pages to the notebook
    for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++)
    {
        String s1 = String::format("Prepend Frame %d", i + 1);
        String s2 = String::format("PPage %d", i + 1);
        Gtk::Frame *frame = new Gtk::Frame(s1);
        frame->set_border_width(10);
        frame->set_size_request(100, 75);

        label = new Gtk::Label(s1);
        frame->add(*label);

        label = new Gtk::Label(s2);
        notebook->prepend_page(*frame, label);
    }

    // Set what page to start at (page 4)
    notebook->set_current_page(3);

    // Create a bunch of buttons
    Gtk::Button *button = new Gtk::Button("close");
    button->sig_clicked().connect(slot(this, &NotebookWindow::dispose));
    table->attach(*button, 0, 1, 1, 2);

    button = new Gtk::Button("next page");
    button->sig_clicked().connect(slot(notebook, &Notebook::next_page));
    table->attach(*button, 1, 2, 1, 2);

    button = new Gtk::Button("prev page");
    button->sig_clicked().connect(slot(notebook, &Notebook::prev_page));
    table->attach(*button, 2, 3, 1, 2);

    button = new Gtk::Button("tab position");
    button->sig_clicked().connect(slot(notebook, &Notebook::on_rotate_book));
    table->attach(*button, 3, 4, 1, 2);

    button = new Gtk::Button("tabs/border on/off");
    button->sig_clicked().connect(slot(notebook, &Notebook::on_tabsborder_book));
    table->attach(*button, 4, 5, 1, 2);

    button = new Gtk::Button("remove page");
    button->sig_clicked().connect(slot(notebook, &Notebook::on_remove_book));
    table->attach(*button, 5, 6, 1, 2);

    table->show_all();
    show();
}

NotebookWindow::~NotebookWindow()
{
}

int main (int argc, char *argv[])
{
    using namespace Main;

    init(&argc, &argv);

    NotebookWindow window;
    window.sig_destroy().connect(slot(&Inti::Main::quit));

    run();
    return 0;
}

I hope this helps you on your way with creating notebooks for your Inti applications.
« Toolbar Index
Container Widgets
Top
 		 Menus »