Controlling content sizes in GtkScrolledWindow

The GtkScrolledWindow widget is an old friend of Gtk+ application developers; its purpose is to allow big widgets to fit into small spaces through the use of scroll bars.

GtkScrolledWindow Example — A vertical GtkScrolledWindow in action

Since Gtk+ 3.0, GtkScrolledWindow has the ability to set the minimum content sizes (both width and height) through the GtkScrolledWindow:min-content-width and GtkScrolledWindow:min-content-height properties, and their related functions.

Starting from the next stable release, Gtk+ will also provide the maximum size counterparts of those properties.

What Do They Do?

The minimum sizes properties, as the name implies, define the minimum size, be it width or height, that the scrollable area will have – even if its child does not completely fill the available space.

scrolledwindow min-content-height — The scrolled window is allocated even when child widgets don’t fill the available space.

The maximum content sizes, on the other hand, define how much the scrollable area is allowed to grow before its contents will starts scrolling.

Lets see it in action:

scroll animation — Example demonstrating minimum and maximum content sizes. The scrolled window is never smaller than 110px, and never taller than 250px.

Where & How to Use Them

You want to use the new properties whenever you want to limit the size of the scrollable area. For example, GtkPopover always shrinks its children widgets to their minimum sizes. The following section exemplifies how to make the content grow to at most 300px, both width and height wise:

<template>
  <object class="GtkPopover">
    <child>
      <object class="GtkScrolledWindow">
        <property name="visible">True</property>
        <property name="max-content-width">300</property>
        <property name="max-content-height">300</property>
      </object>
    </child>
  </object>
</template>

Alternatively, you can call gtk_scrolled_window_set_max_content_width() and gtk_scrolled_window_set_max_content_height() if you want to achieve the same thing programmatically.