Base class for box containers

Box is an abstract widget which encapsulates functionality for a particular kind of container, one that organizes a variable number of widgets into a rectangular area. Box currently has two derived classes, HBox and VBox.

The rectangular area of a Box is organized into either a single row or a single column of child widgets depending upon whether the box is of type HBox or VBox, respectively. Thus, all children of a Box are allocated one dimension in common, which is the height of a row, or the width of a column.

Box uses a notion of packing. Packing refers to adding widgets with reference to a particular position in a Container. For a Box, there are two reference positions: the start and the end of the box. For a VBox, the start is defined as the top of the box and the end is defined as the bottom. For a HBox the start is defined as the left side and the end is defined as the right side.

Use repeated calls to boxPackStart to pack widgets into a Box from start to end. Use boxPackEnd to add widgets from end to start. You may intersperse these calls and add widgets from both ends of the same Box. Besides adding widgets at the start or the end of a box, you can also specify the padding around each widget (in pixels) and a Packing parameter that denotes how to fill up unused space.

While the right amount of padding around each widget is a matter of appearance, the Packing paramter specifies the way the widgets in the container behave when the window is resized and thereby affect the usability. Hence, once you have created a window, you should resize it and see if the widgets behave as expected. The Packing parameter of each child widget determines how excess space is used by that particular widget. See the description of Packing for a detailed explanaition.

Because Box is a Container, you may also use containerAdd to insert widgets into the box, and they will be packed as if with boxPackStart with PackRepel and 0 padding. Use containerRemove to remove widgets from the Box.

Use boxSetHomogeneous to specify whether or not all children of the Box are forced to get the same amount of space. Note that the Packing options PackNatural and PackRepel coincide if space is allotted homogeneously.

Use boxSetSpacing to determine how much space will be minimally placed between all children in the Box.

Use boxReorderChild to move a Box child to a different place in the box.

Use boxSetChildPacking to reset the expand, fill, and padding attributes of any Box child. Use boxQueryChildPacking to query these fields.

| GObject
| +----Object
| +----Widget
| +----Container
| +----Box
| +----ButtonBox
| +----VBox
| +----HBox