I have been away from C++ for a couple of years now doing AS3/Flex work. I have gotten used to being able to create a component and place it in design mode with very little fuss and I am struggling to get my head around the C++ Builder way of doing the same thing.
I have written many components for C++ Builder in the past, but none of them have been visual. What I would like to do now is create a component for customer search and another for order processing because I want to be able to create a new instance of these on the fly. What I don't want to do is have to place each of the components like the dbgrid and search fields manually in code. I would like to do this (as well as set their properties) in design mode.
How do I go about this? I have browsed the source for other Delphi components and I notice they have dfm files which seems to be what I need. How do I do this in C++ Builder? The only option I see is to add a new form if I want a dfm, but this isn't what I want as my components will be based on TPanel.
Is there a way to do this or do I have to resort to doing it all in code with no visual reference?
Pursuing the DFM idea I did a test this morning where I created a component based on TPanel and added a new form to it which I create and parent in the constructor of the component. In design mode I set the form border to none and placed a grid on it. This all looks OK until I place the component in my application, at that point it looks like a panel with a standard looking form in it and the grid is missing. If I run the app the panel shows as expected, borderless and with a grid. The DFM appears to be ignored in design mode for some reason.
If you know a better way to do this than using components then please give me some pointers.
Any help and advice will be appreciated beyond words
You might want to have a look at frames (look for "Frame objects"). They are "subforms" you can design visually and then place on forms.
Just as an FYI item, you can also drop the panel on a form, put any other controls on it, position them, set captions, etc..
Now, click the panel to select it, and use Component->Create Component Template from the IDE's main menu. This creates a unit you can install as a component which will add the panel and it's sub-controls (as a single component) to the IDE's component palette.
Of course, you can then modify the source for that new component like any other component source.
Related
I'm writing a GUI using QT for embedded system with linux. This device has no mouse. Only display and specific keyboard with keys: up, down, return and 7 number keys.
The software will be used to set some parameters of device and read them (some charts also).
Example of how menu could look:
after OPTION 1 selected
After SUBOPTION 1 selected some table with data is loaded.
Sometimes after selecting option i need to load specific widget and sometimes just another set of options.
I think it is possible to implement custom labels and kind of list widget that aligns them.
I guess it is also possible to use Qt's MVC classes for it. They are highly customizable, but i never made custom views and delegates.
Maybe i just need to create QtListView with stringlist model and apply stylesheet to it so it gets look more like buttons. And based on selection in list load next widget.
Which way is better and why?
Is there any easier ways to accomplish this?
Any ideas would be appreciated.
I'm setting up a carousel in Sitecore using Glass Mapper. In the foreach loop to generate each carousel item, I can get the items out easily enough and make them editable with the #Editable command. What this doesn't give, however, is finer control over the edit process. For example, I want to edit the background image using a custom button in the Experience Editor, but I need to set that up in a rendering.
If I was using straight Sitecore, it looks like I'd use Html.Sitecore().ItemRendering and pass in the carousel item as a regular Sitecore item. In this case, I have my strongly-type class from Glass Mapper, which can't be passed in that way.
Is there a comparable method in Glass Mapper for setting up an item rendering? Or is there another way to affect the Experience Editor buttons for the carousel items? I've also experimented with setting up a separate edit mode, which would work fine, but I wanted to put together a cleaner editing experience with a more WYSIWYG approach to the item.
You'll have to use Custom User Experience Buttons which will allow you to edit in Page Editor Mode.
I just googled and found couple of good article which might help you.
http://www.nishtechinc.com/Blog/2015/March/A%20Better%20Approach%20at%20Carousel%20Management
http://www.awareweb.com/awareblog/11-25-14-custombuttonspageeditor
Try Html.Glass().BeginEditFrame() functionality built into Glass Mapper, wrapped in a #using block.
It allows you to specify the fields you wish to edit directly as params. Or if you're feeling adventurous, it can point to a full edit frame configuration in the core DB.
I am making a new graphical menu interface for a project I am making. I don't want to use the menu system provided by windows APIs and want to make one from scratch.
My question is, what is the best method for setting up the structure?
I'm thinking I will need a menu item object, each of which will have to have their own item array list, etc...
Is it considered sloppy to have recursive coding like that? (Ie an object which contains objects of itself, which contains objects of itself, etc...)
I'm thinking I can give the item object a draw interface which checks itself to see if it has an item array that is not null. If it does, it executes the draw command all the way down, thereby giving me a menu with (for my purposes) unlimited submenu level
In my opinion your approach is fine. In nearly all UI frameworks, views contain views as subviews after all.
But the thing is that writing drawing code is too much work for small projects I think. I would consider using a UI framework such as QT and use its view mechanism as a starting point. You can write your own Menu class which will be a subclass of generic View class in the framework.
I have a project where I'd like to have many wxPanel which are displayed or hide, depending the selection of the user. All panel are on the same position, only one is displayed at a time.
On a code side, there is no problem at all. Where it gets tricky, is how to manage this with wxSmith and keep a clear view while having many wxpanel at the sample location?
One way which is really not proper is to user the wxNotebook, and then when you start the soft delete all tabs and then show the needed panel.
I have look around to try to have the panel on a "other" wxSmith window and then load it, like a class but haven't find anything good.
I'm sure, as wxSmith is really a great tool that it must have a way to do this.
Thanks for your help!
See ya
"One way which is really not proper is to user the wxNotebook, and then when you start the soft delete all tabs and then show the needed panel."
Why not? I use that technique for AtomWeaver, and it works fine. The plus side is that you can design each page normally on a RAD GUI builder.
I've created a class called GUI_NotebookPageData that holds a pointer to a single notebook page. Create an array of these, holding info about all notebook pages.
Then, by index, or by name, get the info of the page you want to show/hide, and use wxNotebook's RemovePage()/InsertPage() methods.
This method is specially good for having several pages shown at the same time.
Actually it's possible to use external ressources with wxSmith, then it's very simple to manage the frames.
It create a derived class from wxPanel (or other window) on a new wxSmith window, easy to manage then just required to include it on the project.
I've been wanting to program a simple game with a simple GUI using Qt (Its will be a VERY simple game, nothing fancy). What I've been wondering is, how can I create multiple windows and display them when needed? For an example, a battle screen and an inventory screen. The user should only see one of them, but should be able to access the other one when needed. I was using stacked widget but I'm not sure if that's the proper way. Also, is it better to design the windows in the designer or to code them?
A StackWidget certainly would accomplish what you want to do. The reason why it is not always used for this kind of thing, is that it all the screens are pre-created at the beginning and always exist. This means it takes a little longer to initialize, and you are using more resources than you need at any one time
But as you are saying, if this is a simple game, then I don't see a big problem with it. Just as easily, you could also, create an empty layout and swap the inventory and game panels as needed.
Add my vote to everyone else suggesting to use the designer. It is so much easier to manipulate layouts, actions, and such using the designer then through code.
You can see the Designer manual here
So this is what I would suggest:
Create your "battleScreen.ui" - which is the designer file for your battle screen and everything in it, and then create your "inventory.ui". Both of these could be QWidgets, or QFrames, or whatever makes sense.
Then create your "Game.ui" which will be your QMainWindow.
In your Game main window, you can then add your QStackWidget, and place your inventory, and battle screens in the stack widget.
If you don't know how to do that...
1) drag a QWidget into your form (into the stack widget)
2) select the new QWidget and right-click.
3) Select "Promote to..."
4) Fill out the information to promote the QWidget to your inventory class
Promoted Class Name: The name of your inventory class
Header File: The header file of your inventory class
5) Click add
6) Click Promote.
Hope that helps.
Since I'm not sure what your goals are I can't advise whether or not the stacked widget is appropriate but I think you can accomplish quite a lot using the designer and style sheets. If you need to code some parts of the GUI, you can always drop in a place holder widget and either replace it with coded items or make them children of the place holders.
A general answer for a general question:
Use the Designer to create your windows; hide and show the auxiliary windows as needed.
Use a flow manager class to manage the visibility of a related set of windows.
The stacked widget is useful for managing a button/icon whose appearance changes based on state; the different representations live in the stack.