docs/doxygen/overviews/scrolling.h

   1 /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
   2 // Name:        scrolling.h
   3 // Purpose:     topic overview
   4 // Author:      wxWidgets team
   5 // RCS-ID:      $Id$
   6 // Licence:     wxWindows license
   7 /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
   8
   9 /**
  10
  11 @page overview_scrolling Scrolled Windows
  12
  13 Classes: wxWindow, wxScrolledWindow, wxScrollBar
  14
  15 @li @ref overview_scrolling_model
  16 @li @ref overview_scrolling_example
  17
  18 <hr>
  19
  20
  21 Scrollbars come in various guises in wxWidgets. All windows have the potential
  22 to show a vertical scrollbar and/or a horizontal scrollbar: it is a basic
  23 capability of a window. However, in practice, not all windows do make use of
  24 scrollbars, such as a single-line wxTextCtrl.
  25
  26 Because any class derived from wxWindow may have scrollbars, there are
  27 functions to manipulate the scrollbars and event handlers to intercept scroll
  28 events. But just because a window generates a scroll event, doesn't mean that
  29 the window necessarily handles it and physically scrolls the window. The base
  30 class wxWindow in fact doesn't have any default functionality to handle scroll
  31 events. If you created a wxWindow object with scrollbars, and then clicked on
  32 the scrollbars, nothing at all would happen. This is deliberate, because the
  33 @e interpretation of scroll events varies from one window class to another.
  34
  35 ::wxScrolledWindow (formerly wxCanvas) is an example of a window that adds
  36 functionality to make scrolling really work. It assumes that scrolling happens
  37 in consistent units, not different-sized jumps, and that page size is
  38 represented by the visible portion of the window. It is suited to drawing
  39 applications, but perhaps not so suitable for a sophisticated editor in which
  40 the amount scrolled may vary according to the size of text on a given line. For
  41 this, you would derive from wxWindow and implement scrolling yourself. wxGrid
  42 is an example of a class that implements its own scrolling, largely because
  43 columns and rows can vary in size.
  44
  45
  46 @section overview_scrolling_model The Scrollbar Model
  47
  48 The function wxWindow::SetScrollbar gives a clue about the way a scrollbar is
  49 modeled. This function takes the following arguments:
  50
  51 @beginTable
  52 @row2col{ @c orientation , Which scrollbar: wxVERTICAL or wxHORIZONTAL. }
  53 @row2col{ @c position , The position of the scrollbar in scroll units. }
  54 @row2col{ @c visible , The size of the visible portion of the scrollbar,
  55                        in scroll units. }
  56 @row2col{ @c range , The maximum position of the scrollbar. }
  57 @row2col{ @c refresh , Whether the scrollbar should be repainted. }
  58 @endTable
  59
  60 @c orientation determines whether we're talking about the built-in horizontal
  61 or vertical scrollbar.
  62
  63 @c position is simply the position of the 'thumb' (the bit you drag to scroll
  64 around). It is given in scroll units, and so is relative to the total range of
  65 the scrollbar.
  66
  67 @c visible gives the number of scroll units that represents the portion of the
  68 window currently visible. Normally, a scrollbar is capable of indicating this
  69 visually by showing a different length of thumb.
  70
  71 @c range is the maximum value of the scrollbar, where zero is the start
  72 position. You choose the units that suit you, so if you wanted to display text
  73 that has 100 lines, you would set this to 100. Note that this doesn't have to
  74 correspond to the number of pixels scrolled - it is up to you how you actually
  75 show the contents of the window.
  76
  77 @c refresh just indicates whether the scrollbar should be repainted immediately
  78 or not.
  79
  80
  81 @section overview_scrolling_example An Example
  82
  83 Let's say you wish to display 50 lines of text, using the same font. The window
  84 is sized so that you can only see 16 lines at a time. You would use:
  85
  86 @code
  87 SetScrollbar(wxVERTICAL, 0, 16, 50);
  88 @endcode
  89
  90 Note that with the window at this size, the thumb position can never go above
  91 50 minus 16, or 34. You can determine how many lines are currently visible by
  92 dividing the current view size by the character height in pixels.
  93
  94 When defining your own scrollbar behaviour, you will always need to recalculate
  95 the scrollbar settings when the window size changes. You could therefore put
  96 your scrollbar calculations and SetScrollbar call into a function named
  97 AdjustScrollbars, which can be called initially and also from your wxSizeEvent
  98 handler function.
  99
 100 */
 101