message(n)		     Ck Built-In Commands		    message(n)



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NAME
       message - Create and manipulate message widgets

SYNOPSIS
       message pathName ?options?

STANDARD OPTIONS
       anchor	       background     takeFocus	      textVariable
       attributes      foreground     text

       See the ``options'' manual entry for details on the standard options.

WIDGET-SPECIFIC OPTIONS
       Name:	       aspect
       Class:	       Aspect
       Command-Line Switch:-aspect

	      Specifies a non-negative integer value indicating desired aspect
	      ratio  for  the  text.   The  aspect  ratio  is	specified   as
	      100*width/height.	 100 means the text should be as wide as it is
	      tall, 200 means the text should be twice as wide as it is	 tall,
	      50  means the text should be twice as tall as it is wide, and so
	      on.  Used to choose line length for text if width	 option	 isn't
	      specified. Defaults to 320.

       Name:	       justify
       Class:	       Justify
       Command-Line Switch:-justify

	      Specifies	 how  to  justify lines of text.  Must be one of left,
	      center, or right.	 Defaults to left.  This option works together
	      with  the anchor, aspect, and width options to provide a variety
	      of arrangements of the text within the window.  The  aspect  and
	      width  options  determine	 the  amount of screen space needed to
	      display the text.	 The anchor option determines where this  rec-
	      tangular	area  is displayed within the widget's window, and the
	      justify option determines how each line is displayed within that
	      rectangular  region.   For example, suppose anchor is e and jus-
	      tify is left, and that the message window is  much  larger  than
	      needed  for  the	text.  The the text will displayed so that the
	      left edges of all the lines line up; the entire text block  will
	      be centered in the vertical span of the window.

       Name:	       width
       Class:	       Width
       Command-Line Switch:-width

	      Specifies	 the  length of lines in the window in screen columns.
	      If this option has a value greater than  zero  then  the	aspect
	      option  is  ignored  and	the  width  option determines the line
	      length.  If this option has a value  equal  to  zero,  then  the
	      aspect option determines the line length.
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DESCRIPTION
       The  message  command creates a new window (given by the pathName argu-
       ment)  and  makes  it  into  a  message	widget.	  Additional  options,
       described  above, may be specified on the command line or in the option
       database to configure aspects  of  the  message	such  as  its  colors,
       attributes,  and	 text.	The message command returns its pathName argu-
       ment.  At the time this command is invoked, there must not exist a win-
       dow named pathName, but pathName's parent must exist.

       A message is a widget that displays a textual string.  A message widget
       has three special features.  First, it breaks up its string into	 lines
       in  order  to  produce  a  given aspect ratio for the window.  The line
       breaks are chosen at word boundaries wherever possible (if not  even  a
       single  word  would  fit	 on a line, then the word will be split across
       lines).	Newline characters in the string will force line breaks;  they
       can be used, for example, to leave blank lines in the display.

       The  second feature of a message widget is justification.  The text may
       be displayed left-justified (each line starts at the left side  of  the
       window),	 centered  on  a  line-by-line basis, or right-justified (each
       line ends at the right side of the window).

       The third feature of a message widget is that it handles control	 char-
       acters  and  non-printing  characters  specially.   Tab	characters are
       replaced with enough blank space to line up  on	the  next  8-character
       boundary.  Newlines cause line breaks.  Other control characters (ASCII
       code less than 0x20) and characters not defined in the  font  are  dis-
       played  as  a  four-character  sequence	\xhh where hh is the two-digit
       hexadecimal number corresponding to the character.


WIDGET COMMAND
       The message command creates a new Tcl command whose name	 is  pathName.
       This  command  may  be used to invoke various operations on the widget.
       It has the following  general  form:  pathName  option  ?arg  arg  ...?
       Option  and  the args determine the exact behavior of the command.  The
       following commands are possible for message widgets:

       pathName cget option
	      Returns the current value of the configuration option  given  by
	      option.	Option may have any of the values accepted by the mes-
	      sage command.

       pathName configure ?option? ?value option value ...?
	      Query or modify the configuration options of the widget.	If  no
	      option is specified, returns a list describing all of the avail-
	      able options for pathName. If option is specified with no value,
	      then  the command returns a list describing the one named option
	      (this list will be identical to the corresponding sublist of the
	      value  returned  if  no  option  is  specified).	If one or more
	      option-value pairs are specified, then the command modifies  the
	      given widget option(s) to have the given value(s);  in this case
	      the command returns an empty string.  Option may have any of the
	      values accepted by the message command.


DEFAULT BINDINGS
       When  a	new message is created, it has no default event bindings: mes-
       sages are intended for output purposes only.


BUGS
       Tabs don't work very well with text that is  centered  or  right-justi-
       fied.  The most common result is that the line is justified wrong.


KEYWORDS
       message, widget



Ck				      8.0			    message(n)
