I have just searched in the FF3-Help file for the built-in Control-Resizing Rules but could not find an detailed explanation.
I know that Resizing thing from Phoenix-VD and there it was implemented in a perfect way, seen from the result. Now i wanted to know which features are builtin here in FF3 but did not find any info - especially on the difference beween the last two given options.
The Resizing-Rules in general are not so simple.
For example if you have threee rows with controls.
You may need to "glue" the controls on the border side to their position and tell them to just stay at place and resize.
While the controls in the center may of course need to move while beeing resized.
From the number of Options, my first impression is that FF has a working Resize Manager while its not yet as complete as the one that was built in Phoenix but has all most often needed.
But let me say that to have this feature in anyway is very important for me and was one reason to get FF3.
Another thing i realized is that I can just select multiple controls in FF3, and define all of the resizing rules for all of the selected controls in one strike!
I can't remeber to work as easy as this with any other VD for PB before.
This multi-select stuff makes form design with FF surprisingly fast.
Now to my question: What is the difference between the last two resizing Options?
Can i make (Border-)Controls "sticky" with any of their 4 borders, so they will not move while beeing resized?
Or does FF do that automatically?
Do Controls always move in the form to make spaces between controls and Border to be resized automatically to an proportional size?
PS: I f there is an detailed explanation somewhere in the Forum or in the Help, i am ok with a hint where to find it.
Hi Theo,
The resizing rules were meant to be "basic" and simple to use but, as you have found out, they are not 100% usable for all types of situations. I recevied some excellent code by fellow FF'er Eddy van Esch. My thoughts are to use his code to implement an "advanced" tab in the resize options. That way, users could choose between "basic" and "advanced" rules and it would retain backwards compatability with existing code. Eddy's code is suprisingly simple but handles every type of case that I can think of. He has done a really great job with it and it was so cool of him to offer it to be for use in FF.
The last two options (PropW and PropH) resize the control based on the percentage change in width or height of the form. If the control is 10% the size of the form at run time and the Form changes x% then the control will resize in the same proportion as it was at design time (ie. the contorl will resize to 10% of the new form size).
You can make a contorl "sticky" to the border edges by using the MoveX and MoveY options.
Overall, the existing resize code is okay but certainly not the most versatile and complete implementation. Once I implement Eddy's code then we'll see a big difference in the resize choices.
Hallo Paul, nice to hear that.
The good thing about you is, that you are not only a fabulous programmer, but you are also able to find out which features make really a difference.
The actual resizing will already be ok, for most needs.
Having even more will even help to develop Forms for advanced cases.
I think there should be somewhere in the help an explanation for the last two cases. (SizeX & PropW).
The short Form does not really explain the difference between the two for me.