Which widgets to use for a messenger

I'm currently learning to program Ruby with GUI. And has chosen wxruby. But has never used wxwidgets before. So my question is, which widgets do I use for the users list, the message list (scrolling) and the input area ?

Want to be able to choose font, color and use icons etc in the input area and the messag开发者_如何学JAVAe list. And hoping to be able to have the userimage, nickname, status and smileys in the userlist also.

So anyone knows which to use?

For the input area and the message display, you'll probably want to use a wxRichTextCtrl, which will let you set fonts, colors, styles, etc. The main difference between the two is that the message display should be read-only. To change the style on the input area, you'll probably have wxButtons bound to functions to modify the style.

The userlist will probably be best off as a wxTreeCtrl, because you'll probably want to be able to have groups that you can expand. On the other hand, it might be a lot simpler to use a wxSimpleHtmlListBox because you will be able to use HTML to describe what you want to show, rather than having to worry about the finer details of another control.

For future reference, you might want to look at the Classes by Category page to help you figure out which controls you need, when you have an idea of what you're looking for.