[program-l] Re: VB: Laying out items
- From: gerald.g.weichbrodt@xxxxxx
- To: program-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 09:45:19 -0400
I'm a dinosaur still using VB 6, but I've become more and more of a fan of
placing and sizing controls using code. I find I can come back after being
away from my code for a while and fairly readily figure out what my
thinking was when I laid things out. Otherwise, I often find my best bet
is to look at the screen with an Optacon to see the big picture of the
form. It's so hard to build up a mental picture of the overall placement
of a bunch of controls based on examining the placement of each one, one at
a time.
Regards,
Jerry
"Mark Long"
<Mark.Long@microsof To:
<program-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
t.com> cc:
Sent by: Subject: [program-l] Re: VB:
Laying out items
program-l-bounce@fr
eelists.org
09/22/2005 09:29 AM
Please respond to
program-l
Actually, I would say that it is good practice. We have features to
allow controls to "stick" to one of the form boundaries to automate this
process to some degree.
The version of VB after VS.NET 2005 is Orca and that will support
control grids where controls can be assigned to a grid position and will
automatically resize and move as required when the form size changes. If
you place and size your controls in code, you will be several years
ahead of the curve in a sense.
Mark
-----Original Message-----
From: program-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:program-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Will Pearson
Sent: 22 September 2005 14:06
To: program-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [program-l] Re: VB: Laying out items
Hi Che,
Yes, there's nothing wrong in sizing your controls using code, even
creating
controls on your form using code. It's often common place for someone
to at
least modify the initial sizes and locations of controls in response to
various events the user invokes, say resizing a form, and creating
controls
dynamically using code allows someone to modify the display in response
to
the current state of the application.
Within the code there's various properties to modify positions and
sizes:
Height
Width
Top
Bottom
Left
Right
Size
Location
Plus there's some more that are useful if you are creating your own
controls, i.e.. you're not using the system supplied control classes
such as
button controls, edit controls, etc.
Sizing controls in code offers one advantage over the Windows Forms
designer, at least for a blind person. You can use:
System.Drawing.Graphics.MeasureString
to work out the height and width of a text string. This allows you to
determine what the height and width of a control should be in order to
fit
in a text string that you wish to have as a label, item, etc. You can
then
add any spacing you wish to have between the text and the control's
border,
and you have then worked out the size for the control. One tip that I
have
if you decide to take the code route, is to use math to work out where
each
control should be located and it's size. Position your first control
relative to a point on the form, and then each control's location should
be
relative to other controls that you have already positioned on the form.
This formulaic approach is useful if you want to reposition your
controls
when the user resizes the form, as all you have to do is alter a few
variables in the calculation and then re-run the algorithm. When a user
resizes a form you can do one of three things:
1. Not allow them to resize the form, i.e.. have it at a constant fixed
size
2. Reposition, and maybe resize, your controls to fit them into the new
area
of the form
3. Leave the control's positions and sizes as they were originally,
covering
up any non-visible areas if they shrink the form's size, or leaving a
margin
of whitespace should they expand the form's size beyond the original
size
which one is appropriate is up to how you want to design your
application.
If you want to use the Windows Forms designer, then once you've selected
the
control you wish to move or resize, select properties from the context
menu
and alter the properties associated with the location and size. Using
the
Windows Forms designer can be a quicker method to using code, and has
the
advantage of allowing you to show the form's design to someone and
getting
their feedback on whether it looks OK without having to put in all the
code
to create and successfully compile the code for the form.
Working in the field of human computer interaction, I would encourage
you to
layout a form according to the needs and expectations of your target
users.
A couple of useful tricks are not to cram too many things close
together, as
this hinders a user's ability to quickly visually differentiate between
the
different controls, e.g.. two buttons placed very close together could
be
perceived as one big button if they are too close together. The second
trick is to group controls that have similar functionality, or perform
actions on the same object, together by having less spacing between
these
controls than you would controls that have very distinctive
functionality
from one another, something that again is a trick that leverages
perceptual
psychology.
Will
----- Original Message -----
From: "Che" <che@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <program-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2005 8:44 PM
Subject: [program-l] VB: Laying out items
> So how do blind programmers lay out their design form in studio? I
know
> you can move items with the arrow keys and all, but how do you tell if
> things are laid out properly, or lined up and so forth. For instance,
how
> do you line up labels with appropriate text fields?
> Thanks for any advice,
> Signed,
> Slowly making progress
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