NAME
       message - Create and manipulate message widgets

SYNOPSIS
       message pathName ?options?

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

       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  isn't
              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 pro-
              vide 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  cen-
              tered 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.


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, 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.  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.  In the unusual case
       where  the  font   doesn't   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  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 (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: 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
