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Integrated Editors for the Layout of Resources.

These tools make it possible to visually design and modify the user interface in an interactive way. Use the mouse to lay out controls in dialogs or windows and access attribute settings with a click of the mouse. Resources consist of the Windows, Dialogs, Bitmaps, Icons, Cursors and Strings that are necessary for any application that uses a GUI.

The Dialog and Window Layout Editor

          

Windows Dialogs are laid out using the Windows and Dialog editor. Here it is possible to position a number of controls like pushbuttons, check boxes etc. inside the dialog windows. There are many facilities to help you easily obtain the right layout of the dialogs: a group of controls can be aligned in various ways, resized or moved. The "tabstops" and "visit order" for using the "tab" key can be set. For each control a number of its attributes can be set.

Each control is given a name. These constants connect the layout to the code, and are used when the contents of a control should be retrieved or changed, a check box checked etc. When Compile or Build is selected from the menu, these constants are written into a file which is included in your source files.

The Bitmap and Icon Editor

Windows programs use bitmaps in many places: Icons, Cursors, Bitmap buttons, Toolbars etc. all require small pictures or icons. Visual Prolog incorporates an image editor that is well suited for editing such pictures.

The image editor can rotate or move the pictures. There is a special mirror facility which makes it easy to create symmetrical pictures. Hotspots can be set for cursors, etc. However, the built-in image editor is not well suited for editing large bitmaps; in this case, Windows Paint or some other more suitable program should be used.

All Cursors, Icons and Bitmaps that are created in the project can easily be selected from the other editors. If the button bitmaps are already created, it takes only a few minutes to create a toolbar.

BMPEDIT.GIF (14447 bytes)

Toolbar Editor

The Toolbar editor allows you to create a layout interactively for various kinds of toolbars.

The toolbar style can be one the following:

   Top:      Placed at top of window
   Left:     Placed at left side
   Bottom:   Placed at bottom of window
   Right:    Placed at the right side of the window
   Inside:   Placed at a fixed location inside the window
   Movable:  A floating toolbar, which the user can move around

       

Menu Editor

The Visual Prolog menu editor makes it easy to create pull-down and pop-up menus for object oriented user interfaces. For each entry in the menu a given constant is passed to the program when the user clicks in a menu.

String Resource - Editor

The resource string editor is used to create string tables in the resource file. A string table should hold error messages, prompts, or any other text strings your application needs to display. You can store multiple string tables in your project file.