ANNOUNCE: GRIDPLUS 1.1 - A Grid Based Screen Building Tool For TCL/TK

GRIDPLUS 1.1 has been released and is available from:

http://www.satisoft.com/tcltk/gridplus

ENHANCEMENTS:
====================
*) The "text" widget now has an "HTML style" tags processing mode. The
tags can be used to set attributes (font, font size,
foreground/background colours, underline and bold), set text
indenting, create links (To move the display to other parts of the
text or to invoke TCL procedures), embed images or ICONS package icons
(Which may also be links or invoke TCL procedures).

*) New GRIDPLUS "goto" command/mode to allow the "text" widget to be
moved to a label tag under script control.

*) Support for cascading menus.

*) New "-linkcursor" option to set style of mouse pointer when over
GRIDPLUS"link" or "text" links.

*) The tablelist now supports the "-selectmode" option. When
"extended" or "multiple" modes are used, the value returned is always
a list where each element is a row. This is NOT the default behaviour
where the value, when only one row is selected, is a list in which
each element is a column.

*) The "Phonebook" example application has had on-line help text added
using "tagged" text.

*) New Example Application which makes use of the GRIDPLUS text tags
facility, the Tablelist "-action single" option, uses the GRIDPLUS
"link" to create a toolbar, and is also another demonstration which
uses GRIDPLUS styles and the Tcl/Tk option database.

CHANGES:
====================
*) GRIDPLUS now sets "wm resizable .window 0 0" for all windows.

BUG FIXES:
====================
*) The "*Gridplus.pad" option database setting now works.

*) Tablelist "-exportselection" is now set to zero to fix problem when
making selections from multiple tablelists.

WHAT IS GRIDPLUS:
====================
GRIDPLUS is a package intended to simplify GUI screen layout
development for TCL/TK programmers. GRIDPLUS is the second in a series
of packages aimed at producing a framework for
development/distribution of "database" applications written in TCL/TK,
but I feel that some of the packages may also be of more general
interest. The first package ICONS, released 2002
(http://www.satisoft.com/tcltk/icons), was originally developed to be
used with GRIDPLUS.

Firstly: GRIDPLUS is not a "Visual" design tool.

GRIDPLUS is a "Grid" based layout system which builds on, simplifies
and extends the existing grid manager. GRIDPLUS layouts are defined as
a hierarchy of grids. Each cell in a grid consists of two elements.
These  will usually be a text label and some other widget such as an
entry. It is also allowed to have just one element in a cell, or a
cell which is empty. GRIDPLUS grids can also be stretched to neatly
fill the cells in which they are positioned. While the GRIDPLUS grid
can be used "native", GRIDPLUS commands exist to create grids of
Buttons, Checkbuttons, Entries, Links and Radiobuttons. All places
where text can be displayed make use of the TCL message catalogue
facility.

In effect GRIDPLUS is much more than an alternative to the grid
geometry manager, it provides most, if not all, of the facilities
required to build complete screens/windows. Although aimed at
producing data entry/update/display form screens for database
applications, it may be useful for other tasks.

GRIDPLUS also includes the following features:-

*) Scrollable text widget.
*) Scrollable tablelist .
*) Basic notebook type widget.
*) Simple drop-down menus.
*) Simple method to specify widget traversal order when using the TAB
key to navigate the screen.
*) A group facility to enable/disable groups of widgets and menu
options.
*) Facility to include non-GRIDPLUS widgets in groups.
*) Simple pattern/procedure based entry validations.
*) Works with toplevel windows.

Best Regards,
=Adrian=

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