Writing a SCOadmin manager

Status bar and point help

The status bar is a standard SCOadmin control located on the lower edge of the screen which informs the user of status messages which are helpful to the user but do not warrant posting in a separate dialog box. The SaStatusBar(TCL_ADM) manual page describes how to configure a status bar, as in this example:

   # Build the status bar
   # Standard SCOadmin status bar pixmap
   set logofile {}
   # Full pathname for non-SCOadmin status bar pixmap
   # set logofile "?"
   
   if {[lempty $logofile]} {
   	set statusBar [SaStatusBar $vtMain.statusBar 1]
   } else {
   	set statusBar [SaStatusBar $vtMain.statusBar 1 $logofile]
   }
   UiWidgetSet statusBar $statusBar
   # Connect main screen widget bottom to statusbar
   VtSetValues $mainList -bottomSide $statusBar

The status bar can also be used to display ``point help'', informative help messages about different parts of the screen. In this example from the template, a message is displayed when when the cursor is moved over the Examine selection of the Who menu:

   set examine [VtPushButton $fileMenu.examine \
   	-label [IntlMsg EXAMINE] \
   	-mnemonic [IntlMsg EXAMINE_NM]  \
   	-shortHelpCallback SaShortHelpCB \
   	-shortHelpString  [IntlMsg EXAMINE] \
   	-callback UiExamineCB  \
   	-autoLock UiExamineCB]
   UiWidgetSet examine $examine $menuBar

Note the two lines involved with the point help: one to define the string (-shortHelpString [IntlMsg EXAMINE]) and the other to set up the callback for displaying it in the status bar (-shortHelpCallback SaShortHelpCB).

For information on setting up this capability (also known as ``short help'') see SaShortHelp(TCL_ADM).