Add the intro docs section

2001-02-03  Havoc Pennington  <hp@pobox.com>

	* gtk/tmpl/gtkfixed.sgml: Add the intro docs section

diff --git a/docs/reference/ChangeLog b/docs/reference/ChangeLog
index e327fbb904f16deb95021b34ac660d7a7b8aaa0f..58904ccdb73d5dd8882bf6d95c2425cd52010cfc 100644 (file)
--- a/docs/reference/ChangeLog
+++ b/docs/reference/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,7 @@
+2001-02-03  Havoc Pennington  <hp@pobox.com>
+
+       * gtk/tmpl/gtkfixed.sgml: Add the intro docs section
+
 2001-02-01  Havoc Pennington  <hp@redhat.com>
 
        * gtk/gtk-sections.txt: updated

diff --git a/docs/reference/gtk/tmpl/gtkfixed.sgml b/docs/reference/gtk/tmpl/gtkfixed.sgml
index c72b4e743c581334bd918188d1314a6457e4eaa2..3e3b3d515dc0fee2c3bf0a965ad7f9ce8562485a 100644 (file)
--- a/docs/reference/gtk/tmpl/gtkfixed.sgml
+++ b/docs/reference/gtk/tmpl/gtkfixed.sgml
@@ -2,13 +2,61 @@
 GtkFixed
 
 <!-- ##### SECTION Short_Description ##### -->
-a container which supports fixed sizes and positions of its children.
+a container which allows you to position widgets at fixed coordinates
 
 <!-- ##### SECTION Long_Description ##### -->
 <para>
 The #GtkFixed widget is a container which can place child widgets at fixed
-positions and with fixed sizes, given in pixels.
+positions and with fixed sizes, given in pixels. #GtkFixed performs no
+automatic layout management.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+For most applications, you should not use this container! It keeps
+you from having to learn about the other GTK+ containers, but it
+results in broken applications.
+With #GtkFixed, the following things will result in truncated text, 
+overlapping widgets, and other display bugs:
+<itemizedlist>
+<listitem>
+<para>Themes, which may change widget sizes.
+</para>
+</listitem>
+<listitem>
+<para>Fonts other than the one you used to write the app will of
+course change the size of widgets containing text; keep in mind that
+users may use a larger font because of difficulty reading the default,
+or they may be using Windows or the framebuffer port of GTK+, where
+different fonts are available.
+</para>
+</listitem>
+<listitem>
+<para>
+Translation of text into other languages changes its size. Also,
+display of non-English text will use a different font in many cases.
+</para>
+</listitem>
+</itemizedlist>
+</para>
 
+<para>
+In addition, the fixed widget can't properly be mirrored in
+right-to-left languages such as Hebrew and Arabic. i.e. normally GTK+
+will flip the interface to put labels to the right of the thing they
+label, but it can't do that with #GtkFixed. So your application will 
+not be usable in right-to-left languages.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+Finally, fixed positioning makes it kind of annoying to add/remove GUI
+elements, since you have to reposition all the other elements. This is
+a long-term maintenance problem for your application.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+If you know none of these things are an issue for your application,
+and prefer the simplicity of #GtkFixed, by all means use the
+widget. But you should be aware of the tradeoffs.
 </para>
 
 <!-- ##### SECTION See_Also ##### -->