I'm probably going to botch this explanation.
How could I implement a Blender-like user interface with GTK? I don't mean the color schemes, I mean the drag-to-create-pane system.
In Blender, one can adjust pane size by dragging along the pane border (sort of like GtkPaned). One can create a new pane by dragging on this grip icon in the corner.
And one can merge panes again by dragging on this same icon toward another pane.
The problem with using nested GtkPaned is that I wouldn't be able to merge some panes because of the nesting.
How would I do this otherwise?
EDIT: Some pictures to clarify what I mean
So here's the user interface. Note how it's split up into panes, and how each pane has a drag grip in the upper-right and lower-left.
Dragging on one of the grips of a pane creates a new pane of the same type as that pane...
And you can drag a grip on a pane toward another pane, in which an arrow will show up and on mouse release that other pane will be closed and this pane will take up the remaining space.
And this is pretty flexible, so you can do lots of different things like rearrange the entire interface...
My problem comes in the merging part. Using nested GtkPaned might work if the two panes I am trying to merge are part of the same GtkPaned, but if they were of different GtkPaned it wouldn't work because I couldn't just check the position of the handle.
Related
Desired look
I wish to make a toolbar for my app that will contain some simple buttons, each with a single monochromatic icon. Here is an example of some toolbar buttons similar to I'm trying to achieve, from Mail's compose window:
Notice these buttons have a consistent size, inner padding, padding, and shading. This is a pretty consistent style across macOS, present in Mail, Safari, Finder, etc. This leads me to suspect there's a standardized UI component for creating such buttons.
If I use a segmented control, each button looks correct, with each icon being correctly padded:
Now I would like to add individual buttons that match the style.
Attempt 1
My first attempt was to add a "Push Button" (NSButton) to the toolbar:
This resulted in a wide button that's a bit too short, and not lined up with the segmented control:
Attempt 2
My second attempt was to use a segmented control, with only 1 segment.
This resulted in a button that's the right shape, size, etc., but it was off center relative to its label.
Naturally, I can manually adjust the button to match the goal, but I feel like I'm missing something. What's the proper way to create these standard buttons?
This is actually quite easy to do and you were close already.
You can use NSButton for that. Note that it has different styles (defined in NSButton.BezelStyle) to choose from. The default one is the one to use inside windows and modals. But for toolbars, to match the style of segmented controls and search bars, you can choose the style .texturedRounded.
You can also set the style via Interface Builder. Note that you have to select the button itself, not the toolbar item around it.
To get the correct size, you seem to set the icon within the toolbar item, not the button itself.
Here is my result:
Problem: UIView size is "locked" when designing with Auto Layout in IB
I've uploaded a 20 second video that illustrates my problem, but let me describe it. You may recognize the project: it's right out of Apple's WWDC 2012 "Introduction to Auto Layout." I've got a simple iPhone view in Interface Builder where I've already got a button and label along the bottom. The next step is to add a UIView. Here's where things get ugly.
When I drag the UIView out of the palette in Interface Builder and onto the iPhone window, as soon as I let it go it seems to become locked in to its starting size. I place it in the upper left corner, and I'd like to drag it horizontally to the right side of the window, and vertically to where it will be up against (minus the padding) the button and label along the bottom. But, when I try to resize it, I cannot. It's stuck on its original size!
The video illustrating my problem is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsW4UwnCEkw
You can see me grab the right edge of the view and try to pull it along to the right side of the window, but it won't expand. You can then see me move the entire view to the right side (it retains its size) and then try the opposite: grabbing the left side and trying to expand it so that it sizes up against the left side of the window. In both cases, the view is simply locked to its original size.
What gives! Auto Layout in Interface Builder is just the most frustrating thing. How do I resize a view by dragging? Thanks!
(Note: Xcode 4.6.3.)
In IB, in the series of buttons in the lower right hand corner, click on the rightmost button:
When you do, you'll see a "When resizing Views Apply Constraints To..." pop-up menu:
Make sure that "Siblings and Ancestors" is not checked.
Is it possible to lock or freeze elements in storyboard editor so that they are ignored, when clicking and dragging?
My problem is that I have several elements underneath two big UIViews that cover the whole window. So in order to for example move a button underneath them I first have to move the big views out of the way, move the button, then move them back.
Is there a better way?
When I select the element in the tree-view on the left, it gets deselected as soon as I click on the storyboard. Perhaps there's a keyboard shortcut to keep the selection while dragging?
There isn't I'm afraid, at least not that I've ever been aware of.
You can use the object navigator / tree-view on the left to select your items, then you can move objects around using the x/y/w/h properties on the size inspector.
Another solution could be to set the items you don't want to drag around to hidden while you're dragging other elements around.
I am following some tutorials with expression blend and many of them are tell me to drag a TextBlock from the toolbox. Sure enough I see it, if I long click on it it displays for additional controls.
So if I click it and drag it it should work but it opens up the other controls.
If I double click it then it places it in my design view but I want to drag and drop it.
Am I missing something here, the tutorials I am following are for Expression Blend 4 and I am using Expression Blend 4.
Thinking about it, its sounds correct that you should be able to drag and drop a control on the design surface, but it doesn't work here.
Well in Standard Expression Blend and I assume there is only one version of Expression Blend 4 you actually can't place controls via drag and drop from the toolbox onto the design surface. At least this is my experience.
If you want to place a control what you do is to choose a control via left mouse click in the toolbox which makes it the currently selected one. Then you can place it onto the design surface by defining its dimensions at the place you want to have it positioned.
AFAIK there is no function to drag a control out of the toolbox.
I am trying to create an interface for my application using Qt Designer. I want it to have a tabbed, ribbon-style set of controls at the top, and a MDI-style area with docked windows which I plan to show and hide depending on which tab of the ribbon is currently selected. I am just beginning with Qt Designer as well as Qt4 itself for that matter so I'm not quite sure how to setup the window, which widgets and layouts should I use etc.
It's quite obvious there should be a QTabWidget at the top, but I'm not sure about the bottom. Should I use a QFrame? A QMdiArea? A dock widget? What layouts can I use to make sure the tab widget has a fixed height, occupies the whole width of the window at all times and the bottom area scales as the window is resized?
I've read in the manual that splitter layouts allow for manual adjustment of the size of the widgets they contain, but I can't drag the box size of a widget after I place them inside a splitter. Thus I'm unable to setup the area below the ribbon. Anyone, help?
You should look into the QMainWindow and check the multiple utilities it can provide you (Toolbar, StatusBar, DockWidgets, CentralWidget, etc...).
The way I understood your case is that you will always have the MDI Area visible, and that the tab bar will only be used to change the dockWidgets. Here's how I would do it.
The centralWidget of the mainWindow would be a QWidget with a QVBoxLayout containing a QTabBar widget first (up) and a QMdiArea under it. The sizes should be handled automatically.
This will allow the user (or you) to dock widgets on the left, bottom, top or right areas of the mainWindow's central widget. Keep pointers to the dockWidgets to be able to move and show/hide them at will.
Hope this helps.
VTK Designer, which is built on Qt, has a Ribbon-ish interface. You might take a look at the source code for reference.