From: Greg McFarlane <gregm@iname.com>
Subject: ANNOUNCE: Pmw megawidgets 0.8
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1998 02:05:28 GMT

                        Pmw megawidgets

                          Version 0.8

                  Greg McFarlane <gregm@iname.com>
                    http://www.dscpl.com.au/pmw/
             ftp://ftp.dscpl.com.au/pub/pmw/Pmw.0.8.tar.gz


A new release of Pmw is out.  The main changes in this release are:

  - Major overhaul of all scrolled megawidgets, such as Pmw.ScrolledFrame,
    Pmw.ScrolledCanvas and Pmw.ScrolledText.
  - Modified Pmw.Balloon so that balloon help can be attached to Text
    tagged items as well as Canvas items.  In addition, the same
    balloon help can be attached to different Canvas or Text items.
  - Cleaned up appearance and colors of Pmw.NoteBookR tabs.
  - Pmw.RadioSelect now supports Radiobuttons and Checkbuttons as well
    as normal Buttons.
  - Updated for Tkinter module in python 1.5.2.
  - Due to changes to bind bind() method of Tkinter 1.5.2, megawidgets
    are now able to clean up correctly if a user-supplied callback
    destroys the megawidget.
  - Pmw.ButtonBox now uses the new (in Tk8.0) 'default' option of the
    Button widget instead of a separate frame for drawing the default
    ring.
  - Changed the 'pmw1' fontScheme to set default fonts only when
    running under posix (Unix), since the default fonts on other
    systems (MS-Windows, Mac) look better.
  - Added file dialog and time counter to contrib directory.
  - Changed several exception types to be more consistent.
  - Lots of other bug fixes and additional functionality.

For more information on Pmw, see the home page at
  http://www.dscpl.com.au/pmw/
and click on the link to the latest version.

You can fetch the entire distribution from
  ftp://ftp.dscpl.com.au/pub/pmw/Pmw.0.8.tar.gz

If you have any comments, enhancements or new contributions, please
contact me (gregm@iname.com).

=====================================================================

For those that do not know about Pmw, here is an extract from the
documentation.

    Pmw is a toolkit for building high-level compound widgets, or
    megawidgets, constructed using other widgets as component parts. 
    It promotes consistent look and feel within and between graphical
    applications, is highly configurable to your needs and is easy to
    use.

    Pmw consists of:

        - A few base classes, providing a foundation for building
          megawidgets.

        - A library of flexible and extensible megawidgets built on
          the base classes, such as buttonboxes, notebooks,  
          comboboxes, selection widgets, paned widgets, scrolled
          widgets and dialog windows.

        - A lazy importer/dynamic loader which is automatically
          invoked when Pmw is first imported.  This gives unified
          access to all Pmw classes and functions though the *Pmw.*
          prefix.  It also speeds up module loading time by only
          importing Pmw sub-modules when needed.

        - Reference documentation, consisting of complete listings of
          megawidget options, methods and components.  Full
          descriptions are also available for all the base classes and
          several other megawidget classes.  Descriptions of the other
          megawidgets will be released soon.

        - A test framework and tests for Pmw megawidgets.

        - A slick demonstration of the megawidgets.

        - An interface to the BLT busy, graph and vector commands.

    The interface to Pmw megawidgets is similar to basic Tk widgets, so it
    is easy for developers to include both megawidgets and basic Tk
    widgets in their graphical applications.  In addition, Pmw
    megawidgets may themselves be extended, using either inheritance or
    composition.

    The use of the Pmw megawidgets replaces common widget combinations
    with higher level abstractions.  This simplifies code, making it
    more readable and maintainable.  The ability to extend Pmw
    megawidgets enables developers to create new megawidgets based on
    previous work.


-- 
Greg McFarlane
INMS Telstra Australia (gregm@iname.com)