gtkmm: Modal widgets within window

Question

I have the following issue: I created a program which prompts the user for some input. This is done using a derived Gtk::Dialog that is used like follows:

if (modal_dialog->run() == SUCCESS){
  // do stuff depending on modal_dialog inputs here
}

Now, I would like to replace the dialog by an embedded widget that is shown within my main window, but acts just like my modal dialog. This means I would like to be able to call something like:

if (modal_widget->run == SUCSESS){
  // hide modal widget and do stuff
}

Is this easily possible in C++/gtkmm?

Note: I managed to get the desired behaviour (it feels the same for the end user) using state variables etc... This means, I manually show the wannabe-modal widget, and tell the confirmation button within the wannabe-modal widget to do the rest of the routine (body of the above if -statements). However, I'm using the same wannabe-modal widget for different actions, so that I have always to keep track of what I'm doing, which is not very elegant.

Answer 1

Instead of calling run() You can create a local loop object and make a nested loop. I don't know gtkmm very well, but the gtk+ code would be:

GMainLoop *loop = g_main_loop_new(NULL, FALSE);
g_main_loop_run(loop);
g_main_loop_unref(loop);

Now, in the clicked event of your Ok/Cancel buttons simply call g_main_loop_quit(loop) and the nested loop will break.

Actually this is, more or less, what the gtk_dialog_run function does.

But beware! Your widget run() is blocking but not modal, and this is a dangerous beast: any other widget in the application will still be responsible to the user. It is up to you to avoid any undesired reentry.