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Adding new controls into a dialog
Home Documentation Smile Custom GUI Developing your own custom dialog Adding new controls into a dialog  
Using drag-and-drop
When you drag a control from the palette (or from any custom dialog in edit mode) into a dialog window, the window displays a light frame to notify that it can accept the control.

Some kinds of controls (the Group Boxes for instance) can be a container for other controls. When you drag a control in such a container control, the container is highlighted instead of the whole window, and if you release the mouse button the new control gets installed as an element of that parent control, not as an element of the dialog. To view the hierarchy to which a given control belongs, use the contextual menu (in edit mode). The upper items of the contextual menu of a control display the hierarchy of its containers.
Using the Edit menu
The clipboard commands Cut Copy and Paste, and the Clear command, work on the controls when the dialog is in edit mode; the Undo command is ineffective.

The Paste command pastes into the selection:
  • if no dialog item is selected, Paste pastes the dialog item(s) contained in the clipboard into the dialog, at the first level,
  • if a dialog item is selected and if it can accept dialog items (a Group Box for instance), Paste pastes the contents of the clipboard into that dialog item,
  • if a dialog item is selected and if it does not accept dialog items (a Editable Text Box, for instance) nothing happens.
When you Paste a control, it assumes the same location (its bounds property) in its new container as it had in its original container. Thus, if you copy a control from a large dialog into a smaller one, you may be pasting it out of view. If this happens, use the arrow keys to bring it into view, or select Edit ▸ Clear ⌘⌫ to remove the new item - then use drag-and-drop instead of Copy-Paste.
Smart Select all
Edit ▸ Select all ⌘A selects all the elements of the item(s) which are currently selected:
  • if no dialog item is selected, Select all selects all the dialog item(s) contained in the dialog at the first level,
  • if one or several dialog item(s) are selected Select all selects all the elements that they contain - possibly, no item at all.
Copyright ©2008 Paris, Satimage