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custom widgets and classes


           Group widgets together

                                                                                 Add a checkbox
           If the interface were laid out with the checkbox for a track grouped   Add a slider. Add a
           alongside the volume slider for the same track, it would look better.  checkbox...
           Each track could then have a row of widgets associated with it. As long as you
           know which widgets belong to which track, you can load a lot more tracks at
           once without the checkboxes and sliders getting separated (and without your
           users getting confused).

           The program currently uses a function to add the checkboxes and sliders to
           the interface one widget at a time. If you call the function several times, the
           computer creates two more widgets with each call. But the widgets are not
           grouped. So, how do you group widgets together in a GUI interface?


           Create a new type of widget

           What if you don’t just hand the computer a set of instructions? What if you
           give it a brand new widget instead?                              The GUI
                                                                             packer
           If you create a new kind of widget that groups a checkbox with a slider,
           you can add your new widget to the interface and then guarantee that the
           checkbox and slider stay together:


                                                                                            Your new widget
                                                                                            “glues together”
                                                                                             the other widgets
                                                                                             so they always
                                                                                             stay grouped.




















          Your new widget becomes a new building block for your GUI  interface.

           So, how are new widgets created? And how do they work?

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