I am building an user interface. My program will consist of 4 main parts:
1) Top Menu - TMainMenu. A top of a window
2) Main Menu - TTreeView. A left of a window. Each item of TreeView=corresponded TabSheet of TPageCotrol.
3) Work space - TPageControl. No tabs. An left space.
Each TabSheet has it's own ToolBar and other controls. It will be 5 menus (5 items in TreeView) = 5 TabSheets -> 5 ToolBars and other controls on each TabSheet.
It almost exactly looks like here (it could be: TreeView as Main Menu; MainMenu as Top Menu; Work Area - ToolBar and other controls):
I would like to use an user interface like here:
Where the CoolBar are represented with the Top Menu and the ToolBar (it suits my purpose to use 5 ToolBars instead of 1 ToolBar on each TabSheet). But after a discussion here it seems impossible to copy this CoolBar with the MainMenu and the ToolBar.
My question: how to build an efficient user interface using as examples the UI of uTorrent and the UI of Windows Firewall?
Are there good alternatives, ideas of a building of the UI? How would you make your interface if you need those 4 parts as me?
Now I have something like this:
Thanks!
You'll have to have 5 panels in your client area.
As you select a node in the treeview on the left you will need to call
pnlInboundRules.BringToFront;
The difficult thing is then how to update the single toolbar with the items that should appear on it based on what "tab" you've selected.
You would have to delete the toolbar buttons, and add new buttons for that "page".
Ian suggest panels, I would go with PageControl and set it's tabs TabVisible to false at runtime(*). The reason is that it is much more easy to manage at design time. When user select an item from treeview, activate corresponding TabSheet...
*) I actually haven't done this with stock TPageControl so I don't rememeber would it work this way, ie would it activate TabSheet which have it's TabVisible set to false. It might be that you have to set TabHeight to 0 or use some other trick to hide tabs at runtime.
Related
When I add, for example, a TPanel to a form and align it using alTop and then add a TMainMenu to the same form, the main menu position overrides the panel position such that the Main Menu remains topmost on the form with the panel appearing below it.
Is it possible to override the TMainMenu position so I can add a component like a Panel above it and the Main Menu below it?
Alternatives like TActionManager and/or TToolBar are not suitable because of BiDi compatibility issues.
No, the main menu is a Windows component and its location is fixed. This isn't a Delphi limitation but a restriction on how menus work with windows in Windows.
From MSDN (emphasis mine) :
Only an overlapped or pop-up window can contain a menu bar; a child window cannot contain one. If the window has a title bar, the system positions the menu bar just below it. A menu bar is always visible.
If you want menu-like behaviour in a component which you can freely place anywhere on your form, you would need to either write one yourself or look for third-party alternatives.
As you know there is a new component called TMultiView that can be user as navigation drawer if you set the mode to Drawer. Let's say that I have a drawer with 5 buttons inside and each of them, when clicked, shows in the main form a particular layout.
I was thinking that I could add to my form a lot of TLayout and set their visibility to false. Then, when I click in a button of the Drawer, I set the respective visibility to true/false.
I am not sure if this is a good way to structure the app. Do you have any suggestion?
One approach is to place a TabControl on the form. As you have 5 buttons and want 5 different "layouts" you would add 5 tabs to the TabControl. On each tab place a TLayout.
At design time it is straight forward to design each of the layouts.
At run time switch to the appropriate layout.
I would like to dvelop an app with a GUI like CCleaner, where you have a left aligned tabs, (but not the typically wicvh contain only a word) with an image in a button.
I couldn't find the properties, probably because i'm working only with the installation of delphi XE2, an i have only the TTabControl on the win32 pallete.
i don't know how to create a form like this i call above. Can it be created with a ttabcontrol?
Could anyone help me? I want a form with a left tab with button in each option, that change the right side of the form...
On the Win32 palette there are TTabControl (as you know) and TPageControl which is similar to TTabControl but has separate pages (called TTabSheet) for each tab.
Both have a property TabPosition with 4 possible values: tpTop (default), tpBottom, tpLeft and tpRight. The text of the tabs are vertical for tab positions tpLeft and tpRight. Both tab controls also supports images in the tabs through the Images property which can take a TImageList as container for the images.
If you don't like the vertical text on the tabs, you can compose your form with separate buttons on the left and panels or frames as pages. As buttons you can use TBitBtn or TButton buttons placed directly on the form or on a panel if you like, or you can use a TButtonGroup All of these supports the TImageList mentioned above. For some you can have separate images for disabled, hovered (hot), selected and pressed states.
Read more about these controls in the help.
With 10 years of experience in development, I could not put new buttons on the Toolbar FireMonkey. Could anyone help me?
There is no component editor menu-item to add buttons or seperators, but you can drag buttons from the toolpallet to the toolbar. Or select the toolbar in the form and press F6. Type the name of the control you want on the toolbar and press enter.
TToolBar is now simply a container. You must drop your own controls onto it.
To add a control to a ToolBar, make sure that your ToolBar is selected on the form, select your child control in the Tool Palette, and then click the location in the ToolBar that you wish your child control to appear.
Another way to do this is to ensure that the ToolBar is selected and double-click the control in the Tool Palette. Whatever control is selected becomes the parent.
Many of the new FireMonkey UI controls are now simply containers, including TStatusBar.
To add a text line to TStatusBar, you must add your own TLabel or other control.
I found that the best way to put an image on a button was to literally drop a TImage onto the button and unset the TImage's HitTest property.
All FireMonkey controls are containers and can have child controls now. It might take a little longer to configure your UI, but you have a lot of flexibility.
Use the TLayout control for dividing up the parent control and aligning your controls. Use the Margin and Padding properties to adjust the spacing.
I use a Toolbar as a MainMenu!
I embed a MainMenu into a ToolBar. But the text of the MainMenu (button's captions) is not in the center of ToolButtons.
I have:
I need:
I create a ToolBar, 4 ToolButtons and assign each menu for each button. Or I assign a MainMenu in "Menu" of a ToolBar. When I create a ToolBotton then it's caption is already at the bottom. Does nobody have the same?
After all these I will embed the ToolBar as the MainMenu into a CoolBar. Finally, I will have the same as in Windows Firewall.
Are there alternatives to have the same effect like the CoolBar of Windows Firewall (with the MainMenu + a break-line + ToolButtons of the ToolBar)?
I use Delphi 2010.
How to do this?
How to use properly a MainMenu in a ToolBar?
Thanks!
P.S. Another example and it is not from Windows:
and how to copy the last example...
Here's what might help:
Drop an empty TImageList on the form.
Assign it to the ToolBar.
Set ToolBar.List to True.
Adjust ImageList.Height to your taste.
This will result in the buttons adjusting their heights to the ImageList.Height value and their captions getting centred vertically.