Geometry Management

The VendorShell widget provides geometry management and focus management for the input method's user interface components, as necessary. If the locale warrants it (for example, if the locale is a Japanese Extended UNIX Code (EUC) locale), the VendorShell widget automatically allocates and manages the geometry of any required preedit area or status area or both.

Depending on the current preediting being done, an auxiliary area may be required. If so, the VendorShell widget also instantiates and manages the auxiliary area. Typically, the child of the VendorShell widget is a container widget (such as the XmBulletinBoard or XmRowColumn widgets) that can manage multiple Text and TextField widgets, which allow multibyte character input from the user. In this scenario, all Text widgets share the same input method.

The status, preedit, and auxiliary areas are not accessible to the application programmer. For example, it is not intended for the application programmer to access the window ID of the status area. The user does not need to worry about the instantiation or management of these components as they are managed as required by the VendorShell widget class.

The application programmer has some control over the behavior of the input method user interface components through XmNpreeditType resources of the VendorShell widget class. See "Input Methods" for a description of OffTheSpot and OverTheSpot modes.

Geometry management extends to all input method user interface components. When the application program window (a TopLevelShell widget) is resized, the input method user interface components are resized accordingly, and the preedited strings in them are rearranged as required. Of course, this assumes that the shell window has a resize policy of True.

When the VendorShell widget is created, if a specific input method requires a status area, preedit area, or both, the size of the VendorShell considers the areas required by these components. The extra areas required by the preedit and status areas are part of the VendorShell widget's area. They are also managed by the VendorShell widget, if resizing is necessary.

Because of the potential instantiation of these areas (status and preedit), depending on the input method currently being used, the size of the VendorShell widget area does not necessarily grow or shrink to accommodate exactly the size of its child. The size of the VendorShell widget area grows or shrinks to accommodate both its child's geometry and the geometry of these input method user interface areas. There may be a difference (for example, of 20 pixels) in height between the VendorShell widget and its child widget (the MainWindow area). The width geometry is not affected by the input method user interface components.

In summary, the requested size of the child is honored if possible; the actual size of the VendorShell may be larger than its child.

The requests to specify the geometry of the VendorShell widget and its child are honored as long as they do not conflict with each other or are within the constraint of the VendorShell widget's ability to resize. When they do conflict, the child's widget geometry request has higher precedence. For example, if the size of the child widget is specified as 100x100, the size of VendorShell is also specified as 100x100. The resulting VendorShell has a size of 100x120, while its child widget gets a size of 100x100. If the size of the child widget is not specified, the VendorShell shrinks its child widget if necessary to honor its own size specification. For example, if the size of VendorShell is specified as 100x100 and no size is specified for its child, the child widget has a size of 100x80. If the VendorShell widget is disabled from resizing, regardless of what the geometry request of its child is, the VendorShell widget honors only its own geometry specification.