ch32.htm

linux-unix130.linux.and.unix.ebooks130 linux and unix ebookslinuxLearning Linux - Collection of 12 E

	<TR ALIGN="LEFT" rowspan="1">

		<TD ALIGN="LEFT" VALIGN="TOP"><TT>terse dialog</TT> </TD>

		<TD ALIGN="LEFT" VALIGN="TOP">A small palette listing all dialog box objects by name and icon </TD>

	</TR>

	<TR ALIGN="LEFT" rowspan="1">

		<TD ALIGN="LEFT" VALIGN="TOP"><TT>user subclass</TT> </TD>

		<TD ALIGN="LEFT" VALIGN="TOP">Contains user subclass objects </TD>

	</TR>

</TABLE>



</CENTER>

<P>The Load option of the Palette menu lets you load additional or custom palettes

through a dialog box. The Load dialog box is shown in Figure 32.9. 



<P>

<a href="../art/32/32fig09.gif">Figure 32.9.</a> The

Load dialog box.





<P>

<CENTER>

<H4><A NAME="Heading12<FONT COLOR="#000077">The Help Menu</FONT></H4>

</CENTER>

<P>ObjectBuilder's Help menu provides a list of help topics that correspond to the

chapters of the &quot;Learning ObjectBuilder Guide&quot; distributed by ParcPlace

Systems. The Help menu is shown in Figure 32.10. 



<P>

<a href="../art/32/32fig10.gif">Figure 32.10.</a> The Help menu.





<P><CENTER>

<H4><A NAME="Heading13<FONT COLOR="#000077">The Builder Mode Option</FONT></H4>

</CENTER>

<CENTER>

<H4><FONT COLOR="#000077"><BR>

The Builder Mode Option</FONT></H4>

</CENTER>

<P>The Builder Mode option is displayed in the main window as a selection option.

You can choose which mode ObjectBuilder should be in. Figure 32.11 shows how the

Builder Mode option appears in the main window. 



<P>

<a href="../art/32/32fig11.gif">Figure 32.11.</A> The Builder Mode option.



<P>At any time during development, you can change modes. In the Build mode you &quot;build&quot;

the front end of the application under development. This is the mode that ObjectBuilder

is initially in when it is invoked. In the Run mode, no editing can be done. This

is used to test the objects in the application. All of the objects that were created

function as they would in the completed application. ObjectBuilder also attaches

callback stubs for all callbacks on objects for which callbacks were specified. The

callbacks are logged in the Simulation Trace log discussed earlier.

<CENTER>

<H4><A NAME="Heading14<FONT COLOR="#000077">The Menu Focus Option</FONT></H4>

</CENTER>

<P>A menu cell in ObjectBuilder is an option available in a menu after it is built.

Therefore, menu cells reside within menu objects. When performing an action that

could apply to either a menu or a menu cell, you need to tell ObjectBuilder which

one you wish to apply the action to. This is done by selecting the appropriate option

in the Menu Focus option. An example of when you would need this is if you want to

delete a cell from a menu. To do this you would first have to select <TT>Cell</TT>

from the Menu Focus option and then delete the cell. If Menu was selected from the

Menu Focus option, the whole menu would be deleted and not just the cell that you

wanted. Figure 32.12 shows how the Menu Focus option appears in the main window.





<P>

<a href="../art/32/32fig12.gif">Figure 32.12.</a> The Menu Focus option.







<P><CENTER>

<H4><A NAME="Heading15<FONT COLOR="#000077">The Model Option</FONT></H4>

</CENTER>

<CENTER>

<H4><FONT COLOR="#000077"><BR>

The Model Option</FONT></H4>

</CENTER>

<P>The model selection option allows you to choose which interaction model you want

to work in, either OPEN LOOK, OPEN LOOK 3D, or Motif. The Model option is shown in

Fig- ure 32.13. 



<P>

<a href="../art/32/32fig13.gif">Figure 32.13.</A> The Model option.



<P>When a new model is selected, everything associated to the application being built

changes to the new model. The ObjectBuilder windows and menus remain in the model

that was selected when ObjectBuilder was invoked. The default model is Motif.

<CENTER>

<H4><A NAME="Heading16<FONT COLOR="#000077">The Message Area</FONT></H4>

</CENTER>

<P>The message area is a line at the bottom of the main window. ObjectBuilder uses

the lower-left corner of the message area to display help messages and the lower-right

corner to display status messages. The Message area is shown in Figure 32.14. 



<P>

<a href="../art/32/32fig14.gif">Figure

32.14.</A> The Message area.



<P><CENTER>

<H3><A NAME="Heading17<FONT COLOR="#000077">Manipulating Objects</FONT></H3>

</CENTER>

<P>An application is built of three parts: the graphical user interface (GUI), the

application code, and the link between the two. This section describes the basic

object manipulation techniques required to build an application's GUI.

<CENTER>

<H4><A NAME="Heading18<FONT COLOR="#000077">Parenting an Object</FONT></H4>

</CENTER>

<P>An object is said to be a child of another object if the child object resides

within the parent object. Therefore, if your application has a button within a window

then the button is a child of the window and the window is a parent of the button.

In ObjectBuilder, objects are parented by dropping other objects into them.</P>

<P>Usually only container objects can be children of the root. These include windows,

boxes, dialog boxes, scroll boxes, and paned boxes. Other objects are parented to

or are children of the container objects. Most of these restrictions can be overridden

using the Any Parent option in the Properties dialog box of the Edit Menu.</P>

<P>A child object can be reparented to another object by using the Object Modification

pop-up menu shown in Figure 32.15. 



<P>

<a href="../art/32/32fig15.gif">Figure 32.15.</A> The Object Modifi- cation menu.



<P>This menu is displayed by placing the pointer over the object to be reparented

and pressing the menu button. Once the Reparent option is selected, the object follows

the pointer until you press a mouse button to release the object over the new parent

object.

<CENTER>

<H4><A NAME="Heading19<FONT COLOR="#000077">Creating an Object</FONT></H4>

</CENTER>

<P>Creating an object is done by choosing an object from one of ObjectBuilder's palettes.

To do this, you must first select a palette from the Palettes submenu of the Palette

Menu. Now choose an object by clicking on it with the Select mouse button. Drag the

mouse until the object is in the desired position in your application window. Release

the mouse button to place the object in the window.

<CENTER>

<H4><A NAME="Heading20<FONT COLOR="#000077">Deleting an Object</FONT></H4>

</CENTER>

<P>To delete an object, place the pointer over the object and press the Menu mouse

button. The Object Modification menu, shown in Figure 32.15, is displayed.</P>

<P>In the pull-right menu of the Delete option, there are three suboptions from which

to choose. The function of each is described in Table 32.6. <BR>



<CENTER>

<P><FONT SIZE="4"><B>Table 32.6.</B> Object modification delete options. </FONT>

<TABLE BORDER="0">

	<TR ALIGN="LEFT" rowspan="1">

		<TD ALIGN="LEFT"><I>Option </I></TD>

		<TD ALIGN="LEFT"><I>Description </I></TD>

	</TR>

	<TR ALIGN="LEFT" rowspan="1">

		<TD ALIGN="LEFT" VALIGN="TOP">Clear </TD>

		<TD ALIGN="LEFT" VALIGN="TOP">Removes all children from the selected object. </TD>

	</TR>

	<TR ALIGN="LEFT" rowspan="1">

		<TD ALIGN="LEFT" VALIGN="TOP">Delete </TD>

		<TD ALIGN="LEFT" VALIGN="TOP">Deletes the selected object and all children of that object. </TD>

	</TR>

	<TR ALIGN="LEFT" rowspan="1">

		<TD ALIGN="LEFT" VALIGN="TOP">Eliminate </TD>

		<TD ALIGN="LEFT" VALIGN="TOP">Deletes the selected object but not the children. The children are parented to the

			parent of the original object. </TD>

	</TR>

</TABLE>



</CENTER>

<P>If the object was just created, you can also remove it by selecting <TT>Undo</TT>

from the Edit menu. To delete a menu cell, first make sure the Menu Focus option

is set to <TT>Cell</TT>. If the last cell of an untitled menu is deleted, then the

menu is deleted. With a titled menu, the menu remains if you delete all of the menu

cells.



<DL>

	<DT></DT>

</DL>





<DL>

	<DD>

<HR>

<A NAME="Heading21<FONT COLOR="#000077"><B>NOTE:</B> </FONT>You can't eliminate

	menus because menu cells can't be reparented to anything but a menu. Also, you can't

	eliminate the top-level or root object of an application.

<HR>



</DL>



<CENTER>

<H4><A NAME="Heading22<FONT COLOR="#000077">Moving an Object</FONT></H4>

</CENTER>

<P>To move an object, simply place the pointer over the object and press the Select

button of the mouse. Move the mouse and drag the object to the new location. Release

the mouse button and the object is now located in a new position in the application

window.</P>

<P>To move a menu cell, select <TT>Cell</TT> in the Menu Focus option, place the

pointer over the cell to be moved, and press the Select mouse button. Now move the

cell to the new location and release the mouse button. The cell is located directly

below the cell over which it was dropped. To place a cell at the top of a menu, drop

it on the menu title.



<DL>

	<DT></DT>

</DL>





<DL>

	<DD>

<HR>

<A NAME="Heading23<FONT COLOR="#000077"><B>NOTE: </B></FONT>A child object

	can't be moved outside of the confines of the parent object. To do this you must

	reparent the child as discussed earlier in the section &quot;Parenting an Object.&quot;

<HR>



</DL>



<CENTER>

<H4><A NAME="Heading24<FONT COLOR="#000077">Resizing an Object</FONT></H4>

</CENTER>

<P>To resize an object, place the pointer over the object and press the Drag/Adjust

mouse button. Drag the outline of the object until the desired size is achieved,

then release the mouse button.

<CENTER>

<H4><A NAME="Heading25<FONT COLOR="#000077">Copying an Object</FONT></H4>

</CENTER>

<P>To copy an object, place the pointer over the object and press the Menu mouse

button to display the Object Modification pop-up menu. Select Copy to create an exact

duplicate, or clone, of the object with all its descendants. An outline of the object

follows the pointer until you click a mouse button to release the clone and parent

it to another object. It is possible to parent the clone to the original object.

<CENTER>

<H4><A NAME="Heading26<FONT COLOR="#000077">Converting Objects</FONT></H4>

</CENTER>

<P>An object can be converted to any other visible object derived within the same

category. Object categories correspond to the OI class hierarchy discussed at the

beginning of this chapter.</P>



<P>There are four categories of objects that are described in Table 32.7. <BR>



<CENTER>

<P><FONT SIZE="4"><B>Table 32.7.</B> Object categories. </FONT>

<TABLE BORDER="0">

	<TR ALIGN="LEFT" rowspan="1">

		<TD ALIGN="LEFT"><I>Category </I></TD>

		<TD ALIGN="LEFT"><I>Description </I></TD>

	</TR>

	<TR ALIGN="LEFT" rowspan="1">

		<TD ALIGN="LEFT">Container </TD>

		<TD ALIGN="LEFT"><TT>OI_app_window</TT> and objects derived from <TT>OI_box</TT> </TD>

	</TR>

	<TR ALIGN="LEFT" rowspan="1">

		<TD ALIGN="LEFT">Display and Controller </TD>

		<TD ALIGN="LEFT"><TT>OI_panner</TT> and objects derived from <TT>OI_display_1d</TT> </TD>

	</TR>

	<TR ALIGN="LEFT" rowspan="1">

		<TD ALIGN="LEFT">Text </TD>

		<TD ALIGN="LEFT"><TT>OI_static_text</TT> and objects derived from <TT>OI_lang_server_input</TT> </TD>