User Manual for Dialog Editor Version 2
Contents
1. User Manual for Dialog Editor Version 2 1 Julian Smart Anthemion Software April 2000 Contents Copyright notice Copyright c 2000 Julian Smart Anthemion Software Please see the wxWindows licence for conditions of use il Chapter 1 Introduction The wxWindows Dialog Editor is a tool for creating dialog resource files in wxr format It differs from wxBuilder in the following respectes 1 2 3 4 Scope It is written for dialog editing only and is therefore more convenient than wxBuilder for this purpose File format Dialog editor reads and writes wxWindows resource files extension wxr and has no independent file format Robustness It is written in a more principled way than wxBuilder and is less ambitious Ease of use Windows are edited using the mouse or via consistent property editors which provide immediate visual feedback of changed properties Dialog Editor 2 0 should be compiled and used with wxWindows 2 0 Current status Dialog Editor currently runs under wxMSW and wxGTK It has yet to be tested under wxMotif Future developments Motif compilation lt would be nice to have a dialog browser showing thumbnails of all dialogs in a particular directory Maybe add a menubar editor from wxBuilder Maybe convert Windows rc files Chapter 2 Commands Dialog editor menu bar File menu New Dialog Creates a new dialog resource New Project Creates a new project clears index an2. ce objects containing information about panel items and dialogs are not visual objects However they need to be associated with the visual objects when the latter are created for editing purposes Therefore there is a hash table called resourceAssociations in wxResourceManager When a window is created the resource pointer and window pointer are associated via the hash table When the window is deleted the association is removed Children of a dialog are associated with child wxltemResource objects by calling wxFindWindowByName with the wxltemResource name What needs to be done for XView and Motif The following areas need attention before Dialog Editor will run properly on these platforms 1 2 Files For XView the property editor needs to be made a modeless not modal dialog which has implications for flow of control in wxPropertyInfo Edit Properties which do not return the same value they are set to such as width and height need to be stored directly in wxltemResource and not transferred from window to wxltemResource in wxWindowPropertylnfo InstantiateResource Properties which cannot be dynamically set in XView or Motif need to have the item recreated e g labelOrientation The Dialog Editor source files are as follows wx_rprop h wx_rprop cc handle property setting and getting through the proxy wxPropertylnfo classes and using the property list editor from utils wxprop wx_resed h wx_resed cc the main implementat
3. d resets project name Open Opens an existing resource file Save Saves the current resources Save As Saves the current resources in a named file Clear Clears the current resources Convert Old Resources Takes a directory of wxWindows 1 68 dialog resources and converts them to wxWindows 2 resources in a separate directory See Converting old files p B Exit Exits the program Edit menu Test Dialog Creates the current dialog for test purposes Recreate Recreates the currently selected control from the underlying resource This may be necessary to regenerate items that cannot be changed dynamically and which have got out of sync with the displayed item Delete Deletes the currently selected resource Help menu Help Topics Displays on line help at the contents page About Displays an dialog showing the Dialog Editor version and author Command toolbar The command toolbar consists of the following tools L ar El ol gi oL Clears the project Opens an existing resource file Saves the current resources Aligns the centre of the selected controls horizontally Aligns the top sides of the selected controls horizontally Aligns the bottom sides of the selected controls horizontally Aligns the centre of the selected controls vertically Tool palette CHAPTER 2 Aligns the left sides of the selected controls vertically Aligns the right sides of the selected controls vertically Copies the size of the fi
4. d resources facility December 31st 1998 Version 2 0 e wxWindows 2 0 port e Major user interface changes Allows identifiers to be edited and reads writes an id header file March 15th 1997 Version 1 7 e Added fix to wx_rprop cpp to avoid Fafa bitmap buttons growing every time the button edited e Added fix to wx_resed cpp case wxID_EXIT to clean up properly on exit avoiding double deletion of wxBitmap May 6th 1996 Version 1 6 e Added panel editing in addition to dialog box editing e Cured some bugs with changing window styles such as wxUSER COLOURS and label position e Now preserves syntax of bitmap resources in wxr files March 1996 Version 1 5 e Changed behaviour of New tool and changed File menu to include New project and New dialog items Behaviour should be more standard now March 1st 1996 Version 1 4 e items but not dialogs can now have duplicate names e Can pass a filename to the program from the command line e Cured bizarre error caused by a Windows combobox sending a fake left mouse up error when losing the focus switching to another window This fix will be in wxWindows 1 66 e Rewritten code to use only the new type system and to take account of of new window style partitioning flags for different items may have the same value Again wxWindows 1 66 will have the new style values to make room for more window Styles January 28th 1996 Version 1 2 e Now starts off in non
5. defines editing functionality This allows existing dialogs even instances of subclasses of wxDialogBox to be edited the application specific functionality being temporarily taken over by the dialog editor In order to edit the properties of a dialog box or item a property list editor is invoked This uses the property classes from utils wxprop In order to map between properties and the actual window API such as SetSize and GetSize a proxy class called wxPropertylnfo has been defined with a subclass for each class of wxWindows window to be edited This class defines the main members SetProperty GetProperty GetPropertyNames which transform the normal API into property terms Properties are mostly extracted directly from the window being edited This is in contrast with wxBuilder where everything is stored in a set of parallel data structures and windows oroperties only only set However there are exceptions to this rule in the dialog editor There is in fact a set of parallel objects the wxltemResource objects which can be seen listed in the main Dialog Editor window as a dialog is built up These usually parallel the properties in the windows but occasionally this is not possible For example all dialog boxes being edited must be modeless or the user would not be able to access other windows However the user must be able to specify that when used in an application that dialog box will be modal In this case the value in th
6. e wxltemResource will not match that in the actual dialog box There is a major problem with taking values directly from the windows this information sometimes does not match what went in In Motif and XView size values returned are not the same as those given This causes speedy degeneration of window properties Under Windows properties are almost always consistent The other platforms will need to be catered for by relying more on the wxltemResource objects and not taking size information directly from windows Dynamic setting versus recreation The property editor scheme relies on being able to set window properties dynamically the user Changes a value and the window changes immediately to reflect the new value Unfortunately not all properties can be changed dynamically in wxWindows for example in Motif the label position must be given at panel item creation time because the way the widgets are laid out depend on the label position The label position cannot then be changed without deleting and recreating the item Hence the dialog editor takes two approaches where values are dynamically settable this is done Where they are not the item is deleted and recreated after all existing values have 10 CHAPTER 6 been transferred into the parallel wxltemResource object Therefore in wx_rprop cc some of the SetProperty implementations have one or more call to RecreateWindowFromResource Resource associations wxltemResour
7. ent The best thing is to try your dialog resource on several platforms and see whether tweaking is required for some platforms Converting old files Dialog Editor can make an attempt at converting dialog resources created with Dialog Editor CHAPTER 3 for wxWindows 1 68 The command is Convert Old Resources on the File menu You need to specify two directories an input and an output directory Dialog Editor will do the following conversions EN SO wxMultiText becomes a wxTextCirl with wxTE MULTILINE style wxText becomes a wxTextCtrl wxMessage becomes either a wxStatic Text or wxStaticBitmap wxButton becomes a wxBitmapButton if necessary wxGroupBox becomes wxStaticBox Controls that no longer have labels such as wxTextCtrl and wxListBox have a separate wxStaticT ext control created for them at approximately the correct position The label s window name becomes ControlName Label where ControlName is the name of the control that formerly had the label Identifiers are allocated Font sizes are reduced to counter the decreased font size now created by wxWindows for a given point size The dialog height is reduced slightly to compensate for the fact that the dialog caption is no longer included in the size Chapter 4 Change log April 22nd 2000 Version 2 1 e Various bug fixes e Added buttons for distributing space horizontally and vertically and for copying width and height independently e Added Convert ol
8. he identifier via a property editor you can choose a new name such as a predefined symbol and optionally change the integer assigned to the name assuming it s not a predefined symbol When you save the project the identifier include file is saved as well Include this file in your project so that you can refer to controls and dialogs by identifier rather than obscure integers Note that the wxr file itself can only contain integer ids and not the symbols due to way in which the resource file is loaded Multi platform development wxr files generated on one environment e g Windows can be used in another e g GTK If you use default fonts and colouring set useSystemDefaults to True in the dialog properties then the dialog fonts and colours will take on the native values rather than ones specified in the resource Without this colours in the dialog resource may not match system colours Also set useDialogUnits to True whenever possible since this will cause the dialog to be created using a scale based on the current system font size and will result in dialogs that are portable between screen resolutions as well as platforms Because the same control can have different sizes on different GUIs the user should be cautious in assuming that one resource file will work for all platforms It may be better to plan to conditionally include or load different resource files for different platforms with spacing modified to suit each environm
9. he value in the listbox Properties may have special editors appropriate to the type Filename properties invoke the file selector and properties containing list of user definable strings use a string editor When you change a property value this value is immediately reflected in the dialog or control If the item allows this value to be changed dynamically the relevant wxWindows function will be called internally to effect the change If the value cannot be changed dynamically the item will be destroyed and re created which means that there will be more flickering associated with some kinds of property changes than others CHAPTER 3 Saving and loading files Use File Save and File Save as or the equivalent toolbar button to save the current dialog s in a wxWindows resource file extension wxr The wxr file can be used directly in a wxWindows program if wxWindows resources have been enabled when building the wxWindows library These files can be loaded dynamically or included directly into program source with a include directive See the wxWindows user manual for further details Working with identifiers Dialog Editor keeps track of identifiers in your resources and reads and writes an include file of the form name h where name is the root name of your wxr file Dialog Editor knows about the predefined identifiers such as wxID_OK When you create a dialog or control the identifier is initially generated When you edit t
10. ion in particular the wxResourceManager class wx_reswr cc resource writing code wx_repal cc the dialog editor palette implementation dialoged h dialoged cc small stub for invoking the user interface via a wxResourceManager object 1 Chapter 7 Index D Dynamic setting versus recreation 9 E Edit menu 2 File menu 2 Help menu 2 12
11. lent toolbar button A dialog will appear To put a control on the dialog left click on the appropriate palette icon and then left click on the dialog A new item will appear at the place you clicked You can edit any control or dialog by control left clicking A property editor will appear allowing any property to be selected and edited see Using property editors p 4 You can also edit items by right clicking to show a menu and then selecting Edit properties To move a control drag the item with the left mouse button or edit the position values in the property editor To resize a control you can either select it by left clicking and then dragging on a selection handle or edit the size values in the property editor You can delete items from the right click menu or by selecting the item and choosing Edit Delete from the menu bar Using property editors Property editors consist of a list of properties and current values plus controls at the top of the editor If the property is of an appropriate type you can edit the value directly in the text field and confirm or cancel the value using the two buttons to the left of it If the property has a predefined range of values such as labelFontFamily you can see a list of permissable values by clicking on the button labelled with an ellipsis symbol This will show a listbox with possible values and current selection You may also be able to cycle through values by double clicking t
12. rst selected control to the subsequently selected control s Copies the width of the first selected control to the subsequently selected control s Copies the height of the first selected control to the subsequently selected control s Evenly distributes the space between the selected controls horizontally Note that the controls should be selected in order from left to right Evenly distributes the space between the selected controls vertically Note that the controls should be selected in order from top to bottom Puts the selected control s to the front of the display list Puts the selected control s to the back of the display list Invokes Dialog Editor help The tool palette is used to select a type of control to create on the dialog To create a new control select a tool with left click then left click on the dialog Select the pointer tool to use left click for selecting and deselecting items Resource tree The resource tree shows a list of the dialogs controls and bitmaps currently loaded in Dialog Editor Double clicking on an item shows the associated resource Chapter 3 Procedures Running Dialog Editor To run Dialog Editor under Windows click on the Program Manager or Explorer icon Under UNIX run from the command line The main window shows a menu bar command toolbar tool palette resource list and status line Creating a dialog To create a new dialog click on the File New menu item or equiva
13. user colour mode under Windows e Dragging item drags other selected items e wxMessage saves size correctly if used in conjunction with wxWin 1 66 January 19th 1996 Version 1 1 e Cured crash bug when quitting dialog window e Added Clear menu item CHAPTER 4 e Added window type name to property window December 19th 1995 Version 1 0 First release Chapter 5 Bugs Version 2 0 e No Motif version yet e Some control properties missing When dragging a selected item other selected items should follow to be consistent with convention but don t No grid No keyboard shortcuts No tab ordering In dialog unit mode controls will sometimes move slightly when properties are edited because translating between units isn t always reversible rounding errors Chapter 6 Technical notes Overview The dialog editor is written as a library to be invoked by other programs As you can see dialoged cc is a very small program which invokes the main window via a wxResourceManager object The wxResourceManager object controls the user interface and other aspects of the dialog editor There is wxResourceT able object in wxResourceManager this contains a list of all the wxltemResources currently being edited wxResourceTable and wxltemResource are classes already in wxWindows defined in wx_res h In order to edit a new dialog box the dialog is created and the existing event handler is temporarily replaced with a new one which
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