1\section{wxTreeCtrl overview}\label{wxtreectrloverview}
2
3Classes: \helpref{wxTreeCtrl}{wxtreectrl}, \helpref{wxImageList}{wximagelist}
4
5The tree control displays its items in a tree like structure. Each item has its
6own (optional) icon and a label. An item may be either collapsed (meaning that
7its children are not visible) or expanded (meaning that its children are
8shown). Each item in the tree is identified by its {\it itemId} which is of
9opaque data type {\it wxTreeItemId}. You can test whether an item is valid
10by calling wxTreeItemId::IsOk.
11
12The items text and image may be retrieved and changed with 
13\helpref{GetItemText}{wxtreectrlgetitemtext}/\helpref{SetItemText}{wxtreectrlsetitemtext} 
14and 
15\helpref{GetItemImage}{wxtreectrlgetitemimage}/\helpref{SetItemImage}{wxtreectrlsetitemimage}.
16In fact, an item may even have two images associated with it: the normal one
17and another one for selected state which is set/retrieved with 
18\helpref{SetItemSelectedImage}{wxtreectrlsetitemselectedimage}/\helpref{GetItemSelectedImage}{wxtreectrlgetitemselectedimage} 
19functions, but this functionality might be unavailable on some platforms.
20
21Tree items have several attributes: an item may be selected or not, visible or
22not, bold or not. It may also be expanded or collapsed. All these attributes
23may be retrieved with the corresponding functions: 
24\helpref{IsSelected}{wxtreectrlisselected}, 
25\helpref{IsVisible}{wxtreectrlisvisible}, \helpref{IsBold}{wxtreectrlisbold} 
26and \helpref{IsExpanded}{wxtreectrlisexpanded}. Only one item at a time may be
27selected, selecting another one (with 
28\helpref{SelectItem}{wxtreectrlselectitem}) automatically unselects the
29previously selected one.
30
31In addition to its icon and label, a user-specific data structure may be associated
32with all tree items. If you wish to do it, you should derive a class from {\it
33wxTreeItemData} which is a very simple class having only one function {\it
34GetId()} which returns the id of the item this data is associated with. This
35data will be freed by the control itself when the associated item is deleted
36(all items are deleted when the control is destroyed), so you shouldn't delete
37it yourself (if you do it, you should call 
38\helpref{SetItemData(NULL)}{wxtreectrlsetitemdata} to prevent the tree from
39deleting the pointer second time). The associated data may be retrieved with 
40\helpref{GetItemData()}{wxtreectrlgetitemdata} function.
41
42Working with trees is relatively straightforward if all the items are added to
43the tree at the moment of its creation. However, for large trees it may be
44very inefficient. To improve the performance you may want to delay adding the
45items to the tree until the branch containing the items is expanded: so, in the
46beginning, only the root item is created (with 
47\helpref{AddRoot}{wxtreectrladdroot}). Other items are added when
48EVT\_TREE\_ITEM\_EXPANDING event is received: then all items lying immediately
49under the item being expanded should be added, but, of course, only when this
50event is received for the first time for this item - otherwise, the items would
51be added twice if the user expands/collapses/re-expands the branch.
52
53The tree control provides functions for enumerating its items. There are 3
54groups of enumeration functions: for the children of a given item, for the
55sibling of the given item and for the visible items (those which are currently
56shown to the user: an item may be invisible either because its branch is
57collapsed or because it is scrolled out of view). Child enumeration functions
58require the caller to give them a {\it cookie} parameter: it is a number which
59is opaque to the caller but is used by the tree control itself to allow
60multiple enumerations to run simultaneously (this is explicitly allowed). The
61only thing to remember is that the {\it cookie} passed to 
62\helpref{GetFirstChild}{wxtreectrlgetfirstchild} and to 
63\helpref{GetNextChild}{wxtreectrlgetnextchild} should be the same variable (and
64that nothing should be done with it by the user code).
65
66Among other features of the tree control are: item sorting with 
67\helpref{SortChildren}{wxtreectrlsortchildren} which uses the user-defined comparison
68function \helpref{OnCompareItems}{wxtreectrloncompareitems} (by default the
69comparison is the alphabetic comparison of tree labels), hit testing
70(determining to which portion of the control the given point belongs, useful
71for implementing drag-and-drop in the tree) with 
72\helpref{HitTest}{wxtreectrlhittest} and editing of the tree item labels in
73place (see \helpref{EditLabel}{wxtreectrleditlabel}).
74
75Finally, the tree control has a keyboard interface: the cursor navigation (arrow) keys
76may be used to change the current selection. <HOME> and <END> are used to go to
77the first/last sibling of the current item. '+', '-' and '*' expand, collapse
78and toggle the current branch. Note, however, that <DEL> and <INS> keys do
79nothing by default, but it is common to associate them with deleting an item from
80a tree and inserting a new one into it.
81
82