Slicer3:GUI Experiments:TkTreeCtrl

Background

TkTreeCtrl is a pretty amazing set of interface functionality for displaying trees where each row can be a multi-column list and/or a set of interface widgets. The interface is highly configurable (as shown in the demos) and very efficient. It is a cross-platform tcl extension.

As of late June 2007, TkTreeCtrl is built as part of KWWidgets and is exposed for use in Slicer3. Note that it does not yet have a C++ API so any use of TkTreeCtrl must be implemented in tcl (this code can be invoked from C++ using the Script() method on a KWWidget).

Running the Demo in Slicer3

First, download and unpack the package from TkTreeCtrl. Version 2.2.3 or later should work.

In Slicer3:

• open the tcl console (Control-T or use the menu)
• cd to the directory where you unpacked TkTreeCtrl
• cd to the demos directory
• type the following commands

proc console {args} {}
source demo.tcl
wm deiconify .

• experiment and have fun!
  • note that the File menu includes options for viewing the source of each demo (note how brief and elegant each demo is!)
  • you can even watch the events as you interact with the tree demos
  • you can edit the configuration parameters of the trees on the fly and see the visual result

Plans

• Test the widget
  • Example MRML tree (Steve) (see the ColorTree example described below)
  • Model Hierarchy display properties (Alex)
  • EMSegment (Brad)
  • QueryAtlas (Wendy)
• Propose useful C++ API (all) for implementation by Sebastien and Yumin

Links

• tcl wiki entry on tktreectrl
• a tutorial
• home page

Note there is an HTML manpage with the source distribution that you can load into a browser to use as a reference.

Example

The simple example below is taken from [1] and can be pasted directly into the slicer3 tcl console:

catch "destroy .t"
toplevel .t
package require treectrl
treectrl .t.t
pack .t.t
.t.t column create
.t.t column configure 0 -text Items -expand yes -button no
.t.t element create el1 text
.t.t style create s1
.t.t style elements s1 el1
set itm [.t.t item create]
.t.t item style set $itm 0 s1
.t.t item text $itm 0 "Hello World"
.t.t item lastchild root $itm

A more sophisticated example has been checked into the slicer3 svn (see [2]). To try this, open the tcl interactor and type:

 source $::env(SLICER_HOME)/../Slicer3/Base/GUI/Tcl/ColorTree.tcl
 ::ColorTree::ShowDialog