NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

INTRODUCTION

A node is displayed as a row entry in the widget. Each entry has a text label and icon. When a node has children, its entry is drawn with a small button to the left of the label. Clicking the mouse over this button opens or closes the node. When a node is open, its children are exposed. When it is closed, the children and their descedants are hidden. The button is normally a + or - symbol (ala Windows Explorer), but can be replaced with a pair of Tk images (open and closed images).

If the node has data associated with it, they can be displayed in columns running vertically on either side the tree. You can control the color, font, etc of each entry. Any entry label or data field can be edited in-place.

TREE DATA OBJECT

By default, the treeview widget creates its own tree object. The tree initially contains just a root node. But you can also display trees created by the tree command using the -tree configuration option. Treeview widgets can share the same tree object, possibly displaying different views of the same data.

A tree object has both a Tcl and C API. You can insert or delete nodes using treeview widget or tree command operations, but also from C code. For example, you can load the tree from your C code while still managing and displaying the tree from Tcl. The widget is automatically notified whenever the tree is modified via C or Tcl.

SYNTAX

treeview pathName ?option value?...

The treeview command creates a new window pathName and makes it into a treeview widget. At the time this command is invoked, there must not exist a window named pathName, but pathName's parent must exist. Additional options may be specified on the command line or in the option database to configure aspects of the widget such as its colors and font. See the configure operation below for the exact details about what option and value pairs are valid.

If successful, treeview returns the path name of the widget. It also creates a new Tcl command by the same name. You can use this command to invoke various operations that query or modify the widget. The general form is:

pathName operation ?arg?...

Both operation and its arguments determine the exact behavior of the command. The operations available are described in the TREEVIEW OPERATIONS section.

IDS AND TAGS

blt::treeview .t
set node [.t insert end root "one"]

or tree command.

set tree [blt::tree create]
set node [$tree insert root "one"]

In both cases, a number identifying the node is returned (the value of $node). This serial number or id uniquely identifies the node. Please note that you can't infer a location or position of a node from its id. The only exception is that the root node is always id 0. Since nodes may have the same labels or be moved within the tree, ids provide an convenient way to identify nodes. If a tree is shared, the ids will be the same regardless if you are using by the treeview widget or the tree command. Ids are recycled when the node deleted.

A node may also have any number of tags associated with it. A tag is just a string of characters, and it may take any form except that of an integer. For example, "x123" is valid, but "123" isn't. The same tag may be associated with many different nodes. This is typically done to associate a group of nodes. Many operations in the treeview widget take either node ids or tag names as arguments. Using a tag says to apply the operation to all nodes with that tag.

The tag all is implicitly associated with every node in the tree. It may be used to invoke operations on all the nodes in the tree.

Tags may be shared, just like trees, between clients. For example, you can use the tags created by the tree command with treeview widgets.

SPECIAL NODE IDS

active

The node where the mouse pointer is currently located. When a node is active, it is drawn using its active icon (see the -activeicon option). The active id is changed automatically by moving the mouse pointer over another node or by using the entry activate operation. Note that there can be only one active node at a time.

anchor

The node representing the fixed end of the current selection. The anchor is set by the selection anchor operation.

current

The node where the mouse pointer is currently located. But unlike active, this id changes while the selection is dragged. It is used to determine the current node during button drags.

down

The next open node from the current focus. The down of the last open node is the same.

end

The last open node (in depth-first order) on the tree.

focus

The node that currently has focus. When a node has focus, it receives key events. To indicate focus, the node is drawn with a dotted line around its label. You can change the focus using the focus operation.

last

The last open node from the current focus. But unlike up, when the focus is at root, last wraps around to the last open node in the tree.

mark

The node representing the non-fixed end of the current selection. The mark is set by the selection mark operation.

next

The next open node from the current focus. But unlike down, when the focus is on last open node, next wraps around to the root node.

nextsibling

The next sibling from the node with the current focus. If the node is already the last sibling then it is the nextsibling.

parent

The parent of the node with the current focus. The parent of the root is also the root.

prevsibling

The previous sibling from the node with the current focus. If the node is already the first sibling then it is the prevsibling.

root

The root node. You can also use id 0 to indicate the root.

up

The last open node (in depth-first order) from the current focus. The up of the root node (i.e. the root has focus) is also the root.

view.top

First node that's current visible in the widget.

view.bottom

Last node that's current visible in the widget.

path

Absolute path of a node. Path names refer to the node name, not their entry labels. Paths don't have to start with a separator (see the -separator configuration option), but component names must be separated by the designated separator.

@x,y

Indicates the node that covers the point in the treeview window specified by x and y (in pixel coordinates). If no part of the entryd covers that point, then the closest node to that point is used.

A node may be specified as an id or tag. If the specifier is an integer then it is assumed to refer to the single node with that id. If the specifier is not an integer, it's checked to see if it's a special id (such as focus). Otherwise, it's assumed to be tag. Some operations only operate on a single node at a time; if a tag refers to more than one node, then an error is generated.

DATA FIELDS

ENTRY BINDINGS

TREEVIEW OPERATIONS

pathName operation ?arg arg ...?

Operation and the args determine the exact behavior of the command. The following operation are available for treeview widgets:

pathName bbox ?-screen? tagOrId...

Returns a list of 4 numbers, representing a bounding box of around the specified entries. The entries is given by one or more tagOrId arguments. If the -screen flag is given, then the x-y coordinates of the bounding box are returned as screen coordinates, not virtual coordinates. Virtual coordinates start from 0 from the root node. The returned list contains the following values.

pathName bind tagName ?sequence command?

Associates command with tagName such that whenever the event sequence given by sequence occurs for a node with this tag, command will be invoked. The syntax is similar to the bind command except that it operates on treeview entries, rather than widgets. See the bind manual entry for complete details on sequence and the substitutions performed on command before invoking it.

If all arguments are specified then a new binding is created, replacing any existing binding for the same sequence and tagName. If the first character of command is + then command augments an existing binding rather than replacing it. If no command argument is provided then the command currently associated with tagName and sequence (it's an error occurs if there's no such binding) is returned. If both command and sequence are missing then a list of all the event sequences for which bindings have been defined for tagName.

pathName button operation ?args?

This command is used to control the button selectors within a treeview widget. It has several forms, depending on operation:

pathName cget option

Returns the current value of the configuration option given by option. Option may have any of the values accepted by the configure operation described below.

pathName close ?-recurse? tagOrId...

Closes the node specified by tagOrId. In addition, if a Tcl script was specified by the -closecommand option, it is invoked. If the node is already closed, this command has no effect. If the -recurse flag is present, each child node is recursively closed.

pathName column operation ?args?

The following operations are available for treeview columns.

pathName configure ?option? ?value option value ...?

Query or modify the configuration options of the widget. If no option is specified, returns a list describing all of the available options for pathName (see Tk_ConfigureInfo for information on the format of this list). If option is specified with no value, then the command returns a list describing the one named option (this list will be identical to the corresponding sublist of the value returned if no option is specified). If one or more option-value pairs are specified, then the command modifies the given widget option(s) to have the given value(s); in this case the command returns an empty string. Option and value are described in the section TREEVIEW OPTIONS below.

pathName curselection

Returns a list containing the ids of all of the entries that are currently selected. If there are no entries selected, then the empty string is returned.

pathName delete tagOrId...

Deletes one or more entries given by tagOrId and its children.

pathName entry operation ?args?

The following operations are available for treeview entries.

pathName find ?flags? first last

Finds for all entries matching the criteria given by flags. A list of ids for all matching nodes is returned. First and last are ids designating the range of the search in depth-first order. If last is before first, then nodes are searched in reverse order. The valid flags are:

pathName focus tagOrId

Sets the focus to the node given by tagOrId. When a node has focus, it can receive keyboard events. The special id focus designates the node that currently has focus.

pathName get ?-full? tagOrId tagOrId...

Translates one or more ids to their node entry names. It returns a list of names for all the ids specified. If the -full flag is set, then the full pathnames are returned.

pathName hide ?flags? tagOrId...

Hides all nodes matching the criteria given by flags. The search is performed recursively for each node given by tagOrId. The valid flags are described below:

pathName index ?-at tagOrId? string

Returns the id of the node specified by string. String may be a tag or node id. Some special ids are normally relative to the node that has focus. The -at flag lets you select another node.

pathName insert ?-at tagOrId? position path ?options...? ?path? ?options...?

Inserts one or more nodes at position. Position is the location (number or end) where the new nodes are added to the parent node. Path is the pathname of the new node. Pathnames can be formated either as a Tcl list (each element is a path component) or as a string separated by a special character sequence (using the -separator option). Pathnames are normally absolute, but the -at switch lets you select a relative starting point. Its value is the id of the starting node.

All ancestors of the new node must already exist, unless the -autocreate option is set. It is also an error if a node already exists, unless the -allowduplicates option is set.

Option and value may have any of the values accepted by the entry configure operation described in the ENTRY OPERATIONS section below. This command returns a list of the ids of the new entries.

pathName move tagOrId how destId

Moves the node given by tagOrId to the destination node. The node can not be an ancestor of the destination. DestId is the id of the destination node and can not be the root of the tree. In conjunction with how, it describes how the move is performed.

pathName nearest x y ?varName?

Returns the id of the node entry closest to the given X-Y screen coordinate. The optional argument varName is the name of variable which is set to either button or select to indicate over what part of the node the coordinate lies. If the coordinate is not directly over any node, then varName will contain the empty string.

pathName open ?-recurse? tagOrId...

Opens the one or more nodes specified by tagOrId. If a node is not already open, the Tcl script specified by the -opencommand option is invoked. If the -recurse flag is present, then each descendant is recursively opened.

pathName range ?-open? first last

Returns the ids in depth-first order of the nodes between the first and last ids. If the -open flag is present, it indicates to consider only open nodes. If last is before first, then the ids are returned in reverse order.

pathName scan option args

This command implements scanning. It has two forms, depending on option:

pathName see ?-anchor anchor? tagOrId

Adjusts the view of entries so that the node given by tagOrId is visible in the widget window. It is an error if tagOrId is a tag that refers to more than one node. By default the node's entry is displayed in the middle of the window. This can changed using the -anchor flag. Its value is a Tk anchor position.

pathName selection option arg

This command is used to adjust the selection within a treeview widget. It has several forms, depending on option:

pathName show ?flags? tagOrId...

Exposes all nodes matching the criteria given by flags. This is the inverse of the hide operation. The search is performed recursively for each node given by tagOrId. The valid flags are described below:

pathName sort ?operation? args...

pathName tag operation args

Tags are a general means of selecting and marking nodes in the tree. A tag is just a string of characters, and it may take any form except that of an integer. The same tag may be associated with many different nodes.

Both operation and its arguments determine the exact behavior of the command. The operations available for tags are listed below.

pathName text operation ?args?

This operation is used to provide text editing for cells (data fields in a column) or entry labels. It has several forms, depending on operation:

pathName text delete first last

Deletes the characters in the edit buffer between the two given character positions.

pathName text get ?-root? x y

pathName text icursor index

pathName text index index

Returns the text index of given index.

pathName text insert index string

Insert the text string string into the edit buffer at the index index. For example, the index 0 will prepend the buffer.

pathName text selection args

This operation controls the selection of the editing window. Note that this differs from the selection of entries. It has the following forms:

pathName toggle tagOrId

Opens or closes the node given by tagOrId. If the corresponding -opencommand or -closecommand option is set, then that command is also invoked.

pathName xview args

This command is used to query and change the horizontal position of the information in the widget's window. It can take any of the following forms:

pathName yview ?args?

This command is used to query and change the vertical position of the text in the widget's window. It can take any of the following forms:

TREEVIEW OPTIONS

option add *TreeView.Foreground white
option add *TreeView.Background blue

The following widget options are available:

-activebackground color

Sets the background color for active entries. A node is active when the mouse passes over it's entry or using the activate operation.

-activeforeground color

Sets the foreground color of the active node. A node is active when the mouse passes over it's entry or using the activate operation.

-activeicons images

Specifies images to be displayed for an entry's icon when it is active. Images is a list of two Tk images: the first image is displayed when the node is open, the second when it is closed.

-autocreate boolean

If boolean is true, automatically create missing ancestor nodes when inserting new nodes. Otherwise flag an error. The default is no.

-allowduplicates boolean

If boolean is true, allow nodes with duplicate pathnames when inserting new nodes. Otherwise flag an error. The default is no.

-background color

Sets the background color of the widget. The default is white.

-borderwidth pixels

Sets the width of the 3-D border around the outside edge of the widget. The -relief option determines if the border is to be drawn. The default is 2.

-closecommand string

Specifies a Tcl script to be invoked when a node is closed. You can overrider this for individual entries using the entry's -closecommand option. The default is "". Percent substitutions are performed on string before it is executed. The following substitutions are valid:

-cursor cursor

Specifies the widget's cursor. The default cursor is "".

-dashes number

Sets the dash style of the horizontal and vertical lines drawn connecting entries. Number is the length in pixels of the dashes and gaps in the line. If number is 0, solid lines will be drawn. The default is 1 (dotted).

-exportselection boolean

Indicates if the selection is exported. If the widget is exporting its selection then it will observe the standard X11 protocols for handling the selection. Selections are available as type STRING; the value of the selection will be the label of the selected nodes, separated by newlines. The default is no.

-flat boolean

Indicates whether to display the tree as a flattened list. If boolean is true, then the hierarchy will be a list of full paths for the nodes. This option also has affect on sorting. See the SORT OPERATIONS section for more information. The default is no.

-focusdashes dashList

Sets the dash style of the outline rectangle drawn around the entry label of the node that current has focus. Number is the length in pixels of the dashes and gaps in the line. If number is 0, a solid line will be drawn. The default is 1.

-focusforeground color

Sets the color of the focus rectangle. The default is black.

-font fontName

Specifies the font for entry labels. You can override this for individual entries with the entry's -font configuration option. The default is *-Helvetica-Bold-R-Normal-*-12-120-*.

-foreground color

Sets the text color of entry labels. You can override this for individual entries with the entry's -foreground configuration option. The default is black.

-height pixels

Specifies the requested height of widget. The default is 400.

-hideroot boolean

If boolean is true, it indicates that no entry for the root node should be displayed. The default is no.

-highlightbackground color

Specifies the normal color of the traversal highlight region when the widget does not have the input focus.

-highlightcolor color

Specifies the color of the traversal highlight rectangle when the widget has the input focus. The default is black.

-highlightthickness pixels

Specifies the width of the highlight rectangle indicating when the widget has input focus. The value may have any of the forms acceptable to Tk_GetPixels. If the value is zero, no focus highlight will be displayed. The default is 2.

-icons images

Specifies images for the entry's icon. Images is a list of two Tk images: the first image is displayed when the node is open, the second when it is closed.

-linecolor color

Sets the color of the connecting lines drawn between entries. The default is black.

-linespacing pixels

Sets the number of pixels spacing between entries. The default is 0.

-linewidth pixels

Set the width of the lines drawn connecting entries. If pixels is 0, no vertical or horizontal lines are drawn. The default is 1.

-opencommand string

Specifies a Tcl script to be invoked when a node is open. You can override this for individual entries with the entry's -opencommand configuration option. The default is "". Percent substitutions are performed on string before it is executed. The following substitutions are valid:

-relief relief

Specifies the 3-D effect for the widget. Relief specifies how the treeview widget should appear relative to widget it is packed into; for example, raised means the treeview widget should appear to protrude. The default is sunken.

-scrollmode mode

Specifies the style of scrolling to be used. The following styles are valid. This is the default is hierbox.

-selectbackground color

Sets the background color selected node entries. The default is #ffffea.

-selectborderwidth pixels

Sets the width of the raised 3-D border drawn around the labels of selected entries. The default is 0. -selectcommand string Specifies a Tcl script to invoked when the set of selected nodes changes. The default is "".

-selectforeground color

Sets the color of the labels of selected node entries. The default is black.

-selectmode mode

Specifies the selection mode. If mode is single, only one node can be selected at a time. If multiple more than one node can be selected. The default is single.

-separator string

Specifies the character sequence to use when spliting the path components. The separator may be several characters wide (such as "::") Consecutive separators in a pathname are treated as one. If string is the empty string, the pathnames are Tcl lists. Each element is a path component. The default is "".

-showtitles boolean

If boolean is false, column titles are not be displayed. The default is yes.

-sortselection boolean

If boolean is true, nodes in the selection are ordered as they are currently displayed (depth-first or sorted), not in the order they were selected. The default is no.

-takefocus focus

Provides information used when moving the focus from window to window via keyboard traversal (e.g., Tab and Shift-Tab). If focus is 0, this means that this window should be skipped entirely during keyboard traversal. 1 means that the this window should always receive the input focus. An empty value means that the traversal scripts make the decision whether to focus on the window. The default is "1".

-trim string

Specifies a string leading characters to trim from entry pathnames before parsing. This only makes sense if the -separator is also set. The default is "".

-width pixels

Sets the requested width of the widget. If pixels is 0, then the with is computed from the contents of the treeview widget. The default is 200.

-xscrollcommand string

Specifies the prefix for a command used to communicate with horizontal scrollbars. Whenever the horizontal view in the widget's window changes, the widget will generate a Tcl command by concatenating the scroll command and two numbers. If this option is not specified, then no command will be executed.

-xscrollincrement pixels

Sets the horizontal scrolling distance. The default is 20 pixels.

-yscrollcommand string

Specifies the prefix for a command used to communicate with vertical scrollbars. Whenever the vertical view in the widget's window changes, the widget will generate a Tcl command by concatenating the scroll command and two numbers. If this option is not specified, then no command will be executed.

-yscrollincrement pixels

Sets the vertical scrolling distance. The default is 20 pixels.

ENTRY OPTIONS

There is no resource class or name for entries.

-activeicons images

Specifies images to be displayed as the entry's icon when it is active. This overrides the global -activeicons configuration option for the specific entry. Images is a list of two Tk images: the first image is displayed when the node is open, the second when it is closed.

-bindtags tagList

Specifies the binding tags for nodes. TagList is a list of binding tag names. The tags and their order will determine how events are handled for nodes. Each tag in the list matching the current event sequence will have its Tcl command executed. The default value is all.

-button string

Indicates whether a button should be displayed on the left side of the node entry. String can be yes, no, or auto. If auto, then a button is automatically displayed if the node has children. This is the default.

-closecommand string

Specifies a Tcl script to be invoked when the node is closed. This overrides the global -closecommand option for this entry. The default is "". Percent substitutions are performed on string before it is executed. The following substitutions are valid:

-data string

Sets data fields for the node. String is a list of name-value pairs to be set. The default is "".

-font fontName

Sets the font for entry labels. This overrides the widget's -font option for this node. The default is *-Helvetica-Bold-R-Normal-*-12-120-*.

-foreground color

Sets the text color of the entry label. This overrides the widget's -foreground configuration option. The default is "".

-icons images

Specifies images to be displayed for the entry's icon. This overrides the global -icons configuration option. Images is a list of two Tk images: the first image is displayed when the node is open, the second when it is closed.

-label string

Sets the text for the entry's label. If not set, this defaults to the name of the node. The default is "".

-opencommand string

Specifies a Tcl script to be invoked when the entry is opened. This overrides the widget's -opencommand option for this node. The default is "". Percent substitutions are performed on string before it is executed. The following substitutions are valid:

BUTTON OPTIONS

option add *TreeView.Button.Foreground white
option add *TreeView.button.Background blue

The following are the configuration options available for buttons.

-activebackground color

Sets the background color of active buttons. A button is made active when the mouse passes over it or by the button activate operation.

-activeforeground color

Sets the foreground color of active buttons. A button is made active when the mouse passes over it or by the button activate operation.

-background color

Sets the background of the button. The default is white.

-borderwidth pixels

Sets the width of the 3-D border around the button. The -relief option determines if a border is to be drawn. The default is 1.

-closerelief relief

Specifies the 3-D effect for the closed button. Relief indicates how the button should appear relative to the widget; for example, raised means the button should appear to protrude. The default is solid.

-cursor cursor

Sets the widget's cursor. The default cursor is "".

-foreground color

Sets the foreground color of buttons. The default is black.

-images images

Specifies images to be displayed for the button. Images is a list of two Tk images: the first image is displayed when the button is open, the second when it is closed. If the images is the empty string, then a plus/minus gadget is drawn. The default is "".

-openrelief relief

Specifies the 3-D effect of the open button. Relief indicates how the button should appear relative to the widget; for example, raised means the button should appear to protrude. The default is flat.

-size pixels

Sets the requested size of the button. The default is 0.

COLUMN OPTIONS

option add *TreeView.Column.Foreground white
option add *TreeView.treeView.Background blue

The following configuration options are available for columns.

-background color

Sets the background color of the column. This overrides the widget's -background option. The default is white.

-borderwidth pixels

Sets the width of the 3-D border of the column. The -relief option determines if a border is to be drawn. The default is 0.

-edit boolean

Indicates if the column's data fields can be edited. If boolean is false, the data fields in the column may not be edited. The default is yes.

-foreground color

Specifies the foreground color of the column. You can override this for individual entries with the entry's -foreground option. The default is black.

-font fontName

Sets the font for a column. You can override this for individual entries with the entry's -font option. The default is *-Helvetica-Bold-R-Normal-*-12-120-*.

-hide boolean

If boolean is true, the column is not displayed. The default is yes.

-justify justify

Specifies how the column data fields title should be justified within the column. This matters only when the column is wider than the data field to be display. Justify must be left, right, or center. The default is left.

-pad pad

Specifies how much padding for the left and right sides of the column. Pad is a list of one or two screen distances. If pad has two elements, the left side of the column is padded by the first distance and the right side by the second. If pad has just one distance, both the left and right sides are padded evenly. The default is 2.

-relief relief

Specifies the 3-D effect of the column. Relief specifies how the column should appear relative to the widget; for example, raised means the column should appear to protrude. The default is flat.

-state state

Sets the state of the column. If state is disable then the column title can not be activated nor invoked. The default is normal.

-text string

Sets the title for the column. The default is "".

-titleforeground color

Sets the foreground color of the column title. The default is black.

-titleshadow color

Sets the color of the drop shadow of the column title. The default is "".

-width pixels

Sets the requested width of the column. This overrides the computed with of the column. If pixels is 0, the width is computed as from the contents of the column. The default is 0.

TEXT EDITING OPTIONS

option add *TreeViewEditor.Foreground white
option add *edit.Background blue

The following are the configuration options available for the text editing window.

-background color

Sets the background of the text edit window. The default is white.

-borderwidth pixels

Sets the width of the 3-D border around the edit window. The -relief option determines if a border is to be drawn. The default is 1.

-exportselection boolean

Indicates if the text selection is exported. If the edit window is exporting its selection then it will observe the standard X11 protocols for handling the selection. Selections are available as type STRING. The default is no.

-relief relief

Specifies the 3-D effect of the edit window. Relief indicates how the background should appear relative to the edit window; for example, raised means the background should appear to protrude. The default is solid.

-selectbackground color

Sets the background of the selected text in the edit window. The default is white.

-selectborderwidth pixels

Sets the width of the 3-D border around the selected text in the edit window. The -selectrelief option determines if a border is to be drawn. The default is 1.

-selectforeground color

Sets the foreground of the selected text in the edit window. The default is white.

-selectrelief relief

Specifies the 3-D effect of the selected text in the edit window. Relief indicates how the text should appear relative to the edit window; for example, raised means the text should appear to protrude. The default is flat.

DEFAULT BINDINGS

If the selection mode is single, only one node can be selected at a time. Clicking button 1 on an node selects it and deselects any other selected item.

If the selection mode is multiple, any number of entries may be selected at once, including discontiguous ranges. Clicking Control-Button-1 on a node entry toggles its selection state without affecting any other entries. Pressing Shift-Button-1 on a node entry selects it, extends the selection.

[1]

In extended mode, the selected range can be adjusted by pressing button 1 with the Shift key down: this modifies the selection to consist of the entries between the anchor and the entry under the mouse, inclusive. The un-anchored end of this new selection can also be dragged with the button down.

[2]

In extended mode, pressing button 1 with the Control key down starts a toggle operation: the anchor is set to the entry under the mouse, and its selection state is reversed. The selection state of other entries isn't changed. If the mouse is dragged with button 1 down, then the selection state of all entries between the anchor and the entry under the mouse is set to match that of the anchor entry; the selection state of all other entries remains what it was before the toggle operation began.

[3]

If the mouse leaves the treeview window with button 1 down, the window scrolls away from the mouse, making information visible that used to be off-screen on the side of the mouse. The scrolling continues until the mouse re-enters the window, the button is released, or the end of the hierarchy is reached.

[4]

Mouse button 2 may be used for scanning. If it is pressed and dragged over the treeview widget, the contents of the hierarchy drag at high speed in the direction the mouse moves.

[5]

If the Up or Down key is pressed, the location cursor (active entry) moves up or down one entry. If the selection mode is browse or extended then the new active entry is also selected and all other entries are deselected. In extended mode the new active entry becomes the selection anchor.

[6]

In extended mode, Shift-Up and Shift-Down move the location cursor (active entry) up or down one entry and also extend the selection to that entry in a fashion similar to dragging with mouse button 1.

[7]

The Left and Right keys scroll the treeview widget view left and right by the width of the character 0. Control-Left and Control-Right scroll the treeview widget view left and right by the width of the window. Control-Prior and Control-Next also scroll left and right by the width of the window.

[8]

The Prior and Next keys scroll the treeview widget view up and down by one page (the height of the window).

[9]

The Home and End keys scroll the treeview widget horizontally to the left and right edges, respectively.

[10]

Control-Home sets the location cursor to the the first entry, selects that entry, and deselects everything else in the widget.

[11]

Control-End sets the location cursor to the the last entry, selects that entry, and deselects everything else in the widget.

[12]

In extended mode, Control-Shift-Home extends the selection to the first entry and Control-Shift-End extends the selection to the last entry.

[13]

In multiple mode, Control-Shift-Home moves the location cursor to the first entry and Control-Shift-End moves the location cursor to the last entry.

[14]

The space and Select keys make a selection at the location cursor (active entry) just as if mouse button 1 had been pressed over this entry.

[15]

In extended mode, Control-Shift-space and Shift-Select extend the selection to the active entry just as if button 1 had been pressed with the Shift key down.

[16]

In extended mode, the Escape key cancels the most recent selection and restores all the entries in the selected range to their previous selection state.

[17]

Control-slash selects everything in the widget, except in single and browse modes, in which case it selects the active entry and deselects everything else.

[18]

Control-backslash deselects everything in the widget, except in browse mode where it has no effect.

[19]

The F16 key (labelled Copy on many Sun workstations) or Meta-w copies the selection in the widget to the clipboard, if there is a selection.

The behavior of treeview widgets can be changed by defining new bindings for individual widgets or by redefining the class bindings.

EXAMPLE

treeview .h -bg white

A new Tcl command .h is also created. This command can be used to query and modify the treeview widget. For example, to change the background color of the table to "green", you use the new command and the widget's configure operation.

# Change the background color.
.h configure -background "green"

By default, the treeview widget will automatically create a new tree object to contain the data. The name of the new tree is the pathname of the widget. Above, the new tree object name is ".h". But you can use the -tree option to specify the name of another tree.

# View the tree "myTree".
.h configure -tree "myTree"

When a new tree is created, it contains only a root node. The node is automatically opened. The id of the root node is always 0 (you can use also use the special id root). The insert operation lets you insert one or more new entries into the tree. The last argument is the node's pathname.

# Create a new entry named "myEntry"
set id [.h insert end "myEntry"]

This appends a new node named "myEntry". It will positioned as the last child of the root of the tree (using the position "end"). You can supply another position to order the node within its siblings.

# Prepend "fred".
set id [.h insert 0 "fred"]

Entry names do not need to be unique. By default, the node's label is its name. To supply a different text label, add the -label option.

# Create a new node named "fred"
set id [.h insert end "fred" -label "Fred Flintstone"]

The insert operation returns the id of the new node. You can also use the index operation to get this information.

# Get the id of "fred"
.h index "fred"

To insert a node somewhere other than root, use the -at switch. It takes the id of the node where the new child will be added.

# Create a new node "barney" in "fred".
.h insert -at $id end "barney" 

A pathname describes the path to an entry in the hierarchy. It's a list of entry names that compose the path in the tree. Therefore, you can also add "barney" to "fred" as follows.

# Create a new sub-entry of "fred"
.h insert end "fred barney" 

Every name in the list is ancestor of the next. All ancestors must already exist. That means that an entry "fred" is an ancestor of "barney" and must already exist. But you can use the -autocreate configuration option to force the creation of ancestor nodes.

# Force the creation of ancestors.
.h configure -autocreate yes 
.h insert end "fred barney wilma betty" 

Sometimes the pathname is already separated by a character sequence rather than formed as a list. A file name is a good example of this. You can use the -separator option to specify a separator string to split the path into its components. Each pathname inserted is automatically split using the separator string as a separator. Multiple separators are treated as one.

.h configure -separator /
.h insert end "/usr/local/tcl/bin" 

If the path is prefixed by extraneous characters, you can automatically trim it off using the -trim option. It removed the string from the path before it is parsed.

.h configure -trim C:/windows -separator /
.h insert end "C:/window/system" 

You can insert more than one entry at a time with the insert operation. This can be much faster than looping over a list of names.

# The slow way
foreach f [glob $dir/*] {
    .h insert end $f
}
# The fast way
eval .h insert end [glob $dir/*]

In this case, the insert operation will return a list of ids of the new entries.

You can delete entries with the delete operation. It takes one or more tags of ids as its argument. It deletes the entry and all its children.

.h delete $id

Entries have several configuration options. They control the appearance of the entry's icon and label. We have already seen the -label option that sets the entry's text label. The entry configure operation lets you set or modify an entry's configuration options.

.h entry configure $id -color red -font fixed

You can hide an entry and its children using the -hide option.

.h entry configure $id -hide yes

More that one entry can be configured at once. All entries specified are configured with the same options.

.h entry configure $i1 $i2 $i3 $i4 -color brown 

An icon is displayed for each entry. It's a Tk image drawn to the left of the label. You can set the icon with the entry's -icons option. It takes a list of two image names: one to represent the open entry, another when it is closed.

set im1 [image create photo -file openfolder.gif]
set im2 [image create photo -file closefolder.gif]
.h entry configure $id -icons "$im1 $im2"

If -icons is set to the empty string, no icons are display.

If an entry has children, a button is displayed to the left of the icon. Clicking the mouse on this button opens or closes the sub-hierarchy. The button is normally a + or - symbol, but can be configured in a variety of ways using the button configure operation. For example, the + and - symbols can be replaced with Tk images.

set im1 [image create photo -file closefolder.gif]
set im2 [image create photo -file downarrow.gif]
.h button configure $id -images "$im1 $im2" \
    -openrelief raised -closerelief raised

Entries can contain an arbitrary number of data fields. Data fields are name-value pairs. Both the value and name are strings. The entry's -data option lets you set data fields.

.h entry configure $id -data {mode 0666 group users}

The -data takes a list of name-value pairs.

You can display these data fields as columns in the treeview widget. You can create and configure columns with the column operation. For example, to add a new column to the widget, use the column insert operation. The last argument is the name of the data field that you want to display.

.h column insert end "mode"

The column title is displayed at the top of the column. By default, it's is the field name. You can override this using the column's -text option.

.h column insert end "mode" -text "File Permissions"

Columns have several configuration options. The column configure operation lets you query or modify column options.

.h column configure "mode" -justify left

The -justify option says how the data is justified within in the column. The -hide option indicates whether the column is displayed.

.h column configure "mode" -hide yes

Entries can be selected by clicking on the mouse. Selected entries are drawn using the colors specified by the -selectforeground and -selectbackground configuration options. The selection itself is managed by the selection operation.

# Clear all selections
.h selection clear 0 end
# Select the root node
.h selection set 0 

The curselection operation returns a list of ids of all the selected entries.

set ids [.h curselection]

You can use the get operation to convert the ids to their pathnames.

set names [eval .h get -full $ids]

If a treeview is exporting its selection (using the -exportselection option), then it will observe the standard X11 protocols for handling the selection. Treeview selections are available as type STRING; the value of the selection will be the pathnames of the selected entries, separated by newlines.

The treeview supports two modes of selection: single and multiple. In single select mode, only one entry can be selected at a time, while multiple select mode allows several entries to be selected. The mode is set by the widget's -selectmode option.

.h configure -selectmode "multiple"

You can be notified when the list of selected entries changes. The widget's -selectcommand specifies a Tcl procedure that is called whenever the selection changes.

proc SelectNotify { widget } {
   set ids [$widget curselection]
}
.h configure -selectcommand "SelectNotify .h"

The widget supports the standard Tk scrolling and scanning operations. The treeview can be both horizontally and vertically. You can attach scrollbars to the treeview the same way as the listbox or canvas widgets.

scrollbar .xbar -orient horizontal -command ".h xview"
scrollbar .ybar -orient vertical -command ".h yview"
.h configure -xscrollcommand ".xbar set" \
    -yscrollcommand ".ybar set"

There are three different modes of scrolling: listbox, canvas, and hierbox. In listbox mode, the last entry can always be scrolled to the top of the widget. In hierbox mode, the last entry is always drawn at the bottom of the widget. The scroll mode is set by the widget's -selectmode option.

.h configure -scrollmode "listbox"

Entries can be programmatically opened or closed using the open and close operations respectively.

.h open $id
.h close $id

When an entry is opened, a Tcl procedure can be automatically invoked. The -opencommand option specifies this procedure. This procedure can lazily insert entries as needed.

proc AddEntries { dir } {
   eval .h insert end [glob -nocomplain $dir/*] 
}
.h configure -opencommand "AddEntries %P"

Now when an entry is opened, the procedure AddEntries is called and adds children to the entry. Before the command is invoked, special "%" substitutions (like bind) are performed. Above, %P is translated to the pathname of the entry.

The same feature exists when an entry is closed. The -closecommand option specifies the procedure.

proc DeleteEntries { id } {
   .h entry delete $id 0 end
}
.h configure -closecommand "DeleteEntries %#"

When an entry is closed, the procedure DeleteEntries is called and deletes the entry's children using the entry delete operation (%# is the id of entry).

KEYWORDS