On Aug 13, 2008, at 8:59 AM, Maximilian Albert wrote:

Hi all,

I'd like to implement a toolbar which is comprised of various subtools. These subtools are represented by icons in the left half of the toolbar. Depending on the currently active subtool I want to display certain control widgets in the right half. How can I interactively replace these control widgets when the user switches subtools?

I think we'll need to look at this closely. Done incorrectly we will end up with usability problems.

More importantly, the current implementation path (GTK+'s UIManager) does not allow for such things, so we'll probably have to rebuild each toolbar from scratch. At the moment it takes a bunch of GTKAction instances and then dynamically creates an appropriate tool item or menu item depending on space and if things end up on the toolbar itself or on the overflow menu.

If we replace the use of UIManager, we'll have to replicate all that functionality. So we need to be careful and think things through here.

Another question: While certainly there should be at most one subtool active at each time, there are situations when I want none of them to be active. If I understand correctly, EgeSelectOneAction is not the right thing for my purpose because it always requires exactly one option to be active. Is there another kind of action which I can use or do I need to implement my own?

Looking to XForms for a functional model, items would have a property of being relevant or not. UI items bound to a non relevant data source could either appear as disabled or could hide. This "relevant" concept might be a point to consider.

Many thanks for your help, Max

P.S.: Sorry for cc'ing you directly, Jon, but Bulia said that you might know the anser. :)

No problem.