The dialog editor is a GUI
based tool for the definition of dialog windows (windows with controls).
It supports the following phases of the definition of a GUI:
- Specifying the required controls
Prototypes of controls are dragged to the target dialog window.
They are moved to---roughly---the right location.
- Refining the controls
The controls may be refined: specifying labels, sizes, fonts, items in
menus, etc.
- Fixing the layout and size of the window
The layout specification for the dialog window is established. The
Dialog Editor guesses the layout intentions of the user and translates
these into XPCE's dialog-window symbolic layout
statements.
- Specifying behaviour
Both internal behaviour and the link to the application may be
established using graphics. The dialog may be tested, while graphical
animation illustrates how user-actions are processed and transferred to
the application.
- Generation of code
A Prolog description of the dialog window is realised by dragging the
dialog from the list of dialog-windows to a PceEmacs window running in
Prolog mode.
- Linking the dialog in the application
The generated code is a clause of the predicate dialog/2.
The first argument of this clause identifies the dialog, while
the second arguments describes the structure and behaviour of the
dialog. The body is empty. The library predicate make_dialog/2
is used to create a dialog window from the description of dialog/2.
Section Index