1. Introduction

Recreating the behavior implemented in the GeoUtils was a) not fun, and b) really, really not fun. They are totally undocumented (as with almost everthing interesting the CSF ever did). What really kicked off the implementation of the GeoUtils was my discovery of John Cwikla's SmartMessageBox - without this gem, this work would have been impossible. A round of applause for this guy, please, and his intentions of ``Furthering `open software' into reality...''.

The GeoUtils provide a mechanism by which BulletinBoard subclasses can automatically inherit geometry management for laying out their children. The good thing about the GeoUtils is that you get to specify XtInherit* for most of the class methods for a BulletinBoard subclass. The drawback is that you lose some flexibility (nevertheless a good tradeoff, because many of these functions are extremely difficult to write).

change_managedmethodrealizemethodresizemethodquery_geometrymethodgeometry_managermethodset_valuesmethodThe mechanism provides for

The GeoUtils functions typically begin with _XmGeo (but not all do), whereas the corresponding BulletinBoard methods, for what the GeoUtils do normally, begin with _XmGM.