A Notebook simulates a real notebook by grouping components into separate pages. It also contains components for accessing pages and describing pages. Only one page can be seen at a time (see the example Notebook application in Figure 3-28). The page shown in the example is a Container component that displays dialog icons; however, the Notebook can be used to contain any component and so can be used for many different applications.
The Page Scroller component (shown on the lower right corner of the page Figure 3-28) can be used to display different pages of the Notebook much as a reader would flip pages back and forth in a book. By default, a SpinBox component is used as the Page Scroller but the application can specify a different component. For example, an application could specify a ScrollBar component to be used as the Page Scroller component of the Notebook.
You can also change the page displayed by activating application-supplied button Tabs, which the Notebook displays as Major Tabs and Minor Tabs. Major Tabs are used by applications to divide the pages of the Notebook into major sections. In the example shown in Figure 3-28, Major Tabs (on the right-hand side of the page in the example) are used to divide the pages into dialogs and widgets. Minor Tabs are used by applications to subdivide the major sections. This example does not use Minor Tabs. If the Notebook is too small to show all the available Major or Minor Tabs, then Tab Scroller buttons are displayed on each side of the row or column of Tabs; you can activate these Tab Scroller buttons to scroll to the Tab you wish to see.
The Status area (which this example does not use) is used by the application to display additional information about a page. It is supplied by the application and can be different for each page shown.
Notebooks can contain five fields: the page itself, Page Scroller, Major Tabs, Minor Tabs, and Status area. However, the tabs and Status area are not required fields. Their use depends on the needs of the particular application.
For keyboard navigation, Notebook components are grouped into five fields: the page, Page Scroller, Major Tabs, Minor Tabs, and Status area. However, since all components are or can be application-supplied and may not be traversable, not all five fields may be present. See section 3.12 for instructions on keyboard navigation.
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