|--< intro >--< api >--< overview >--< sourcetool >--| ![]() |
The Parent |
The basic visual source too app allows you to draw view regions within
the inner window. The first issue which you should recognize is that your
container may be of a fixed width and height or perhaps is resizable. Even
more subtle of an issue - perhaps what you are managing is not in a window
but is inside of another view. Either way the inner region represents the
parent object which your frames will relate to.
Under the Parent menu you can toggle the resizing behavior
of the window.
Please consider this a learning tool! It is very obvious what sort of speed hit your code will take if you do not share dependencies. Play with this tool and learn how to make the layout routing work fastest for your design implementation. It would take hours to code all the combinations to test the various dependencies you can set to get very similar interfaces. In the next version you will be able to tell the tool what views your application uses. These will be connected to the frames you draw on the screen. (They are also necessary for the WEdgeManager object to know what views to find in the view hierarchy to associate with your frames.) |
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Guide Edges in the Design Mode |
When positiong views in the inner area it often helps to use guides
to arrange your objects. You can create percentage or literal guides to
define a resizing/positioning behaviour or just for visual alignment. Guides
are created by dragging from a ruler onto the open area. Percentage rulers
will move as a window is resized (but make sure resizing is turned on in
the Parent menu.)
To create a percentage guide toggle the ruler by clicking on the top left corner where the rulers meet. The ruler's values will change from literal numbers to percentages. Rember that in the design mode you can modify, select and delete the objects you have drawn. (The delete key removes selected objects.) In the next version the guide menu will allow you to manually enter a value to position the guide in terms of literal or percentage values. Presently the percentage version of the ruler is not working very well. I haven't had time to fix it. |
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Layout and Design Mode |
One of the principle features of this
tool is that it is a true real time WYSIWYG development tool. Once you
have drawn a frame in the design mode you can define the resizing behavior
in the layout mode.
If you return to the design mode and adjust the frame which you just arranged, it will preserve the arrangement and make adjustments to move the frame just as you asked. The requested resizing style is persistant and some resizing mode once set will not allow you to adjust the view's positioning. (In these cases, moving violates the layout or positioning you have described.) To set an edge's resizing behaviour you should be in the layout mode. Click on an edge and it will become wavy (highlited). The next click you enter will set the resizing behavior. At the present time you may only click on guidelines to align the frames. Presently all forms of relationships exist. Here's a quick summary
of the relationships and how to see them visually:
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