4.10 Layout hints

The FXPacker, FXTopWindow, and FXGroupBox widgets accept the following layout hints in their children:

LAYOUT_SIDE_TOP

Attaches a widget to the top side of the cavity. LAYOUT_SIDE_TOP is the default layout hint.

LAYOUT_SIDE_BOTTOM

Attaches a widget to the bottom side of the cavity.

LAYOUT_SIDE_LEFT

Attaches a widget to the left side of the cavity.

LAYOUT_SIDE_RIGHT

Attaches a widget to the right side of the cavity.

You should specify only one of the LAYOUT_SIDE_* hints per child. The top and bottom hints effectively reduce the height of the available space remaining to place other children. The left and right hints effectively reduce the width of the available space remaining to place other children.

All layout managers support the following layout hints:

LAYOUT_LEFT (default) and LAYOUT_RIGHT. The layout manager places the widget on the left or right side of the space remaining in the container.
LAYOUT_TOP (default) and LAYOUT_BOTTOM. The layout manager places the widget on the top or bottom side of the space remaining in the container.
LAYOUT_CENTER_X and LAYOUT_CENTER_Y. The layout manager centers the widget in the X- or Y-direction in the parent. The manager adds extra spacing around the widget to place it at the center of the space available to it. The widget's size will be its default size unless you specify LAYOUT_FIX_WIDTH or LAYOUT_FIX_HEIGHT.
LAYOUT_FILL_X and LAYOUT_FILL_Y. You can specify either none, one, or both of these layout hints. LAYOUT_FILL_X causes the parent layout manager to stretch or to shrink the widget to accomodate the available space. If you place more than one child with this option side by side, the manager subdivides the available space proportionally to the children's default size. LAYOUT_FILL_Y has the identical effect in the vertical direction.

FXPacker, FXTopWindow, and FXGroupBox must use LAYOUT_LEFT and LAYOUT_RIGHT with LAYOUT_SIDE_TOP and LAYOUT_SIDE_BOTTOM. The Abaqus GUI Toolkit ignores hints if they do not make sense; for example, FXHorizontalFrame ignores LAYOUT_TOP and LAYOUT_BOTTOM. Similar rules apply for the other hints.

The majority of widgets in the Abaqus GUI Toolkit have width and height arguments in their constructors. In most cases you can accept the default value of zero for these arguments, which allows the application to determine the proper size of the widget. However, in some cases you will need to set specific values for the width and height of a widget. To set the width and height, you must pass the LAYOUT_FIX_WIDTH and LAYOUT_FIX_HEIGHT flags to the options argument of the widget. If you do not pass these flags to the options argument, the toolkit will ignore the values that you specified for the width and height.

Layout hints are described in detail in Appendix C, “Layout hints.”