Geometry Manager

[Peter Haworth]

Thanks Robert.  It does sound like I will need to do the resizing by  
script as you say.  But I'm confused about the geometry manager.  It  
doesn't appear to do anything right now even though all the objects  
I've looked at are set to scale when the window resizes (the  
default).  If I write my own geomanager, do I have to do something to  
stop the LC geomanager doing things in addition to what I do in my own  
geomanager (even though it appears to do nothing right now)?

The reason the geo management issue came up is to deal with different  
screen resolutions.  What I need to do is figure out the screen  
resolution at startup and if it has changed since the last time the  
app was run, call my resizing handler to deal with the new screen  
resolution.  If I do allow the user to change window sizes, I could of  
course use the same resizing handler but the main use right now is to  
deal with screen resolutions.

There are other issues I'm sure, for example if I resize a field  
control, do I need to reset the font size?  I guess it's the fear of  
the unknown that is making me consider just grouping all the objects  
on the card together and adding scroll bars to the group so the user  
can scroll around the window when necessary.  It seems like that's  
pretty easy to implement but I would need to see it in action to know  
whether it would be acceptable to the user.

Pete Haworth
On Dec 21, 2010, at 10:36 AM, Robert Brenstein wrote:

> On 21.12.2010 at 10:13 Uhr -0800 Peter Haworth apparently wrote:
>> Just started trying to figure out the geometry manager.  It appears  
>> there is already a default for every control to scale it when the  
>> user resizes the window.  Problem is, it doesn't happen.  If I  
>> resize my window, all the controls on it that fall completely  
>> outside the boundary of the window disappear and any that are  
>> partially outside the window are cut off.
>>
>> I'd also add that I tried looking in the LC preferences to see if  
>> there was a setting to enable/disable the geometry manager and,  
>> with glx2 installed, the only preferences that I could get to were  
>> the glx2 ones, not the LC ones.
>>
>> Pete Haworth
>>
>
> As others suggested, rolling your own geometry management is  
> recommended for more complex situations. The built-in geometry  
> manager works but to a certain complexity only, and when it breaks,  
> the time and effort invested in setting it up will got to waste. You  
> have indicated that your stack is not simple, so going with the  
> built-in manager is not recommended. Others have already hinted that  
> geometry management is not that difficult to program. Typically, you  
> will have
>
> on preOpenCard
> -- accommodate user-inflicted resizing which occured on another card
> myGeomMgr (the width of this cd),(the height of this cd)
> end preOpenCard
>
> on resizeStack pNewWidth,pNewHeight
>  -- accommodate user-inflicted resizing on this card
>  myGeomMgr pNewWidth,pNewHeight
> end resizeStack
>
> on myGeomMgr pNewWidth,pNewHeight
> -- card level geometry manager
> constant cMargin = 25
> # do the magic with bg objects
> myBgGeomMgr pNewWidth,pNewHeight -- optional
> # do the magic with card groups
> myGrpGeomMgr pNewWidth,pNewHeight -- optional
> # do the magic with cd objects
> ...
>  -- an example resizing a field
> set the width of fld kListFld to pNewWidth-2*cMargin
> set the left of fld kListFld to cMargin
> ...
> end myGeomMgr
>
> Such a setup allows you to call your geometry management also from  
> scripts, and allows you to pass parameters between scripts, if  
> needed. Normally, one positions/resizes objects relative to card  
> edges and other objects, dealing with width and height of each  
> object. The order of positioning/resizing is often critical.
>
> Robert
>
> _______________________________________________
> use-livecode mailing list
> use-livecode at lists.runrev.com
> Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your  
> subscription preferences:
> http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
>