Managing UI Geometry: 2 Arranging Your Generic Objects

The process of arranging user interface elements for a GEOS application differs drastically from that of traditional user interface programming methods. In most graphical systems, you must manually determine the location of each and every user interface element. For instance, to design a dialog box, you have to figure the location of each text string, button, and list entry. Normally, these items would have to be hard-coded into your application, and often different video resolutions would have to be taken into account.

Not so in GEOS. The generic and specific UI libraries work with the geometry manager to automatically arrange your generic UI objects in the most appropriate way. To describe a dialog box in GEOS, for instance, you simply have to define the objects contained in the dialog box and their relative positions in the generic object tree; GEOS does the rest, determining the position and visual effects of each object. You can even fine-tune the appearance of each object with the use of hints.

General Geometry Rules

Orienting Children

Justifying and Centering Children

Sizing Objects

Outlining the Composite

Using Monikers

Using Custom Child Spacing

Allowing Children to Wrap

Object Placement

GEOS SDK TechDocs |

1 Geometry Manager Overview | Next:

3 Positioning and Sizing Windows