I wish ...

[Paul Dupuis]

Folks,

Thanks for the tips, but I know how to position objects exactly where I
want in a scrolling group

My "venting" was that IF you are thinking about the layout in terms of
offsets from the top left of the group, you are forever adding the top
or left to your object positions

If my group is at 50,50 (top left) and has margins of 0 and I want an
object position inside the group at 40 pixel in from the left of the
group and 40 pixels down from the top of the group, I can't set the
topLeft of the object to 40,40 I have to do math like:

set the top of btn X to the top of the owner of btn x + 40
set the left of btn x to the left of the owner of btn x+40

OR explicitly as

set the top of btn X to the top of group Y + 40
set the left of btn x to the left of group Y +40

OR very explicitly as

set the topLeft of btn X to 90,90


Wouldn't it be more convenient to be able to do something like

set the relative top of btn X to 40 -- and have LiveCode see the keyword
"relative" and position it at 40 pix down from the top of it's owner?

And have "relative" be independent of the current scroll. So in the same
example if the group is current scrolled down 200 pixels and button
who's original top was 40 (relative to the top of the group or 90 in
card coordinates) is now at -110 in card coordinates. If you create
another object to position, you have to factor in the current scroll as
well. If you could specify "relative", the engine would account for the
scroll for you.

The "relative" keyword would always be applicable for any object below a
stack, since even for a single button on a card, the button's owner is
the card and "relative top" is the same as "top" since a card topLeft is
0,0 by definition.



On 6/11/2015 6:52 PM, Mike Bonner wrote:
> If you want to get the size of the group including stuff outside the
> visible area, look at the formattedheight the formattedwidth or go directly
> to the formattedrect and use that.
>
> On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 3:15 PM, Bob Sneidar <bobsneidar at iotecdigital.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Seems like you could write a handler that could do it. The owner is what
>> you want to look at in the dictionary. The owner of an object is the group
>> it is in.
>>
>> Bob S
>>
>>
>>> On Jun 11, 2015, at 09:00 , Paul Dupuis <paul at researchware.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> ... that LiveCode had a way you could set any and all the coordinates
>>> (loc, rect, top, bottom, left, right, topLeft, topRight, bottomLeft,
>>> bottomRight) of an object inside a group RELATIVE to the group (AND
>>> independent of the group's scroll) - like the relativePoints property of
>>> a polygon graphic!
>>>
>>> That would make arranging complex layouts of objects in a scrolling
>>> group SO MUCH easier!
>>>
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