Glimmer Easy Tab Item Syntax

Have you ever found using TabItems and TabFolders somewhat painful due to their inconsistencies with the rest of the SWT widgets? For example, TabItem is not just any kind of widget as it does not get added to the children of TabFolder, yet to a special list of tab items instead. Additionally, you cannot use TabItem as a parent for other widgets. Instead, you must instantiate a Composite and then pass it to the setControl method on TabItem. It is something that I forget to do whenever I haven't used the TabItem widget for a while.

Well, worry no more. Glimmer's got the solution.

Check out this syntax:

shell {
  text "SWT"
  tab_folder {
    tab_item {
      text "Tab 1"
      label { 
        text "Hello World!" 
      }
    }
    tab_item {
      text "Tab 2"
      label { 
        text "Bonjour Univers!" 
      }
    }
  }
}

The new tab_item in Glimmer acts as a special widget that feels like a composite by allowing you to lay widgets inside it, but still behaves like a tab item by allowing you to set the tab title text. Give it a spin, and let me know what you think.

Here is the interface produced:

Tab 1


Tab 2


By the way, this feature was implemented in response to a suggestion by Tom Robinson. So, if there are any other features that you would like to see in Glimmer, please share in a comment, an email (andy obtiva [dot] com,) or a post on the Glimmer Eclipse newsgroup.