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NAME

       message - Create and manipulate 'message' non-interactive text widgets

SYNOPSIS

       message pathName ?options?

STANDARD OPTIONS

       -anchor               -background          -borderwidth
       -cursor               -font                -foreground
       -highlightbackground  -highlightcolor      -highlightthickness
       -padx                 -pady                -relief
       -takefocus            -text                -textvariable

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

WIDGET-SPECIFIC OPTIONS

       Command-Line Name:-aspect
       Database Name:  aspect
       Database Class: 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 is not specified.  Defaults to 150.

       Command-Line Name:-justify
       Database Name:  justify
       Database Class: 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,  -padx,
              -pady,  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, -padx, and -pady options determine where
              this rectangular 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 -justify is left, and that the message window  is
              much  larger than needed for the text.  The text will be displayed so that the left
              edges of all the lines line up and the right edge of the longest line is -padx from
              the  right  side  of  the  window;   the  entire text block will be centered in the
              vertical span of the window.

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

              Specifies the length of lines in the window.  The value may have any of  the  forms
              acceptable  to Tk_GetPixels.  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  less  than  or  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  argument)  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,  font,  text,  and  initial  relief.   The  message  command  returns its pathName
       argument.  At the time this command is invoked,  there  must  not  exist  a  window  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 that differentiate it from a label widget.  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  characters  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
       displayed as a four-character sequence \xhh where hh is the two-digit  hexadecimal  number
       corresponding  to  the character.  In the unusual case where the font does not contain all
       of the characters in “0123456789abcdef\x” then control characters and undefined characters
       are not displayed at all.

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 message 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 available options for pathName (see
              Tk_ConfigureInfo for information on  the  format  of  this  list).   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: messages are intended for
       output purposes only.

BUGS

       Tabs do not work very well with text that is centered or right-justified.  The most common
       result is that the line is justified wrong.

SEE ALSO

       label(3tk)

KEYWORDS

       message, widget