Hi, Richard! 

>I am starting to use the grid widget and find the documentation
>lacking.  There is *no* printed documentation on it (right?), 
>and the online doc is almost okay as a reference but falls flat as a
>guide.  BTW, I'm on MS Windows using Allegro CL 3.0.2.

Your observation is right. What I keep looking for is some introduction
like "How to do xyz in ACL for Windows". 
Does anyone know about any document like this, printed or online? 

Otherwise, the sources for the grid-widget (available from Franz, as far as
I know) offer valuable insights. 


>Can someone tell me if there is a way to add a grid-column-section
>or grid-row-section to a grid via an API call rather than via the
>:default-initargs approach to the defclass for the grid-widget?

I often use something like this: 

(defmethod initialize-instance :after ((self <your-grid-class>) 
                                                     &rest initargs
                                                     &key 
                                                     <more params>)
    (let* ((rows (<create-your-row-objects>))
            (row-target (row-section self <name-of-row-section>))
            (columns (<create-your-columns>))
            (column-target (column-section self <name-of-col-section>))
            (i 0))
       (dolist (a-row rows)
           (add-row row-target a-row (incf i)))
       (setf i 0)
       (dolist (a-column columns)
           (add-column column-target a-column (incf i)))
       ))


>I'm sure I will have more questions like this soon, if anyone has
>some helpful hints that are a sentence or two or three that will
>save me days of wondering how to do something typical and straightforward,
>I would love to receive any such info no matter how informal.

I would love to see a collection of hints and tips like this. How could we
make this up? Does someone have experience with a simple database
accessible via WWW with two forms: One to submit a trick or solution one
has found (maybe with the possibility to set links to similar problems),
and the other one to query the database regarding to the problem at hand. 

Yours,