A more sophisticated container is a box. It allows you to place, or pack, more than one widget inside a simple container. There are horizontal (GtkHBox) and vertical (GtkVBox) boxes that pack their widgets correspondingly. First, create a new box:

<?php $box =& new GtkHBox($homogenous = false, $spacing = 0); ?>

Then place some widgets into it using either pack_start() method (packs left-to-right for HBox and top-to-bottom for VBox) or pack_end() method (vice versa).

<?php
  $box->pack_start($child, $expand = true, $fill = true, $padding = 0);
?>

You can nest the boxes to any degree, thus creating complex containment patterns.