Hi all

I wonder whether this might be useful and/or of interest - it can be downloaded here:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1v_JUnY-o0jJY-WvpW6N0rO2O7GolFKRd?usp =sharing

Paul Newton

Forms layout manager (FLM)

Description

This is a small utility that enables saving and restoring of form layouts.

Many of you will have come across situations where the controls on a form are shuffled around at runtime. In order to achive this, the developer will have to work with one form design and then adjust TOP and LEFT for a number of controls by implementing code to make the runtime adjustments. But all the time, in design mode they only see one layout.

What if you could have one form (SCX) but have two different views of it at design time and implement either or both designs at run time (i.e. expose one design or the other for the user, or even let the user switch between the two different layouts).

What if all of this could be achieved more or less effortlessly and with no need to remember and or calculate object positions?

Welcome to the Forms layout manager.

How it works

Start with a form design, say "Expanded". Run the Forms layout manager and have it store the positions of all the objects at the form level. These will be stored in a table (well I never) and the same table will be used for all forms and all form designs.

At the same time that the form design is being saved, FLM can also generate code to reposition the controls at runtime.

Now modify the form design, reposition the controls, make the form larger or smaller and so on. Let's call this design "Compact". Let FLM save the new layout and generate the code to reproduce the layout at runtime.

Now whenever you want to work in the form designer, and see in the designer what the user will see, simply use FLM to restore the required layout ("Expanded" or "Compact"). In other words, when working in the form designer you will see just one design, uncluttered by the controls in the other layout.

At the moment, FLM only processes LEFT and TOP but it is designed in such a way that other properties (e.g. WIDTH, HEIGHT, FILLCOLOR etc) could be handled in the same way with minimal changes required in FLM.

I have not yet investigated whether the concept could be extended to classes in a VCX. One thing at a time ...

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