Creating Entries in a HList Widget<A NAME=412> </A>

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### Creating Entries in a HList Widget

Each entry in an HList widget has a unique name, called its entry-path, which determines each entry's position in the HList widget. The entry-paths of the HList entries are very similar to the pathnames of Unix files. Each entry-path is a list of string names separated by a separator character. By default, the separator character is the period character (`.`), but it can be configured using the `-separator` option of the HList widget.

In program 4-3, we add several new entries `foo`, `foo.bar`, `foo.bor`, `foo.bar.bao`, .. etc, into the HList widget using the `add` method. The relationship between the entries is signified by their names, in a way similar to how Unix denotes directories and subdirectories. For example, `foo` is the parent of `foo.bar` and `foo.bor`; `foo.bar` is the parent of `foo.bar.bao`, and so on. As far as the terminology goes, we also say that `foo.bar` a child of `foo`; `foo` is an ancestor of `foo.bar.bao` and `foo.bar.bao` is a descendant of `foo`.

The output of program 4-2 is shown in figure 4-3. As we can see, the entries are displayed under their parents with the amount of indentation control by the `-indent` option of the HList widget: `foo.bar.bao` and `foo.bar.kao` are display under `foo.bar`, which is in turn displayed under `foo`.

Entries with no parents, for example, `foo` and `dor` in program 4-2, are called top-level entries. Top-level entries are usually entries with no immediate superiors in a hierarchical. For example, the owner of a company, the principle of a school or the root directory of a Unix file system. Toplevel entries are displayed with no indentation.

As evident from program 4-2, all entries who entry-path does not contain a separator character are top-level entries. The only exception is the separator character itself is also a toplevel entry. This makes it easy to display Unix file and directory names inside the HList widget, as shown in program 4-4.

> `set folder [tix getimage folder]
> tixScrolledHList .sh -options {
> hlist.separator /
> hlist.itemType imagetext
> hlist.drawBranch true
> hlist.indent 14
> hlist.wideSelection false
> }
> pack .sh -expand yes -fill both
> set hlist [.sh subwidget hlist]
> foreach directory {/ /usr /usr/bin /usr/local /etc /etc/rc.d} {
> $hlist add $directory -image $folder -text $directory
> }`

(Figure 4-4) Displaying Directories in a HList Widget

Each entry is associated with a display item (see section 3.2 about display items). We can use the `-itemtype` option of the HList widget to specify the default type of display item to be created by the the `add` method, as shown in program 4-2 and 4-4. Alternatively, we can also specify the type of display item using the `-itemtype` option for the `add` method.