A widget tree is created in a top-down manner. First a shell widget is created. Next, a single child widget, usually a subclass of CwComposite, is created as the child of the shell. This process continues until the application has created all the widgets in the tree.

In the following example, the widget tree for a graphics application window is shown. A CwTopLevelShell is created to interact with the window manager. A CwMainWindow is created as the single child of the shell. A CwForm is created as the child of the main window. The CwForm is required to position a CwDrawingArea and a CwRowColumn, which are created as children of the form. Three CwPushButtons are created as children of the row-column widget.