Re: Moving controls interactively

On 26/set/09, at 23:37, Andy Lee wrote:

> might be the very point of the exercise, or might not.  I think it  
> depends on what the real requirements are.

Overriding mouseDown and mouseDragged as Scott suggests was my first  
idea, I though about subclassing all the elements but then I wondered  
if going a little down the events chain would have allowed me to have  
the logic controlling normal/rearrange mode just in one place rather  
than in every subclass.

> Is the purpose to give the user the power to decide on their UI  
> layout?  If so, I wonder if arbitrary dragging of controls is *too*  
> much control.  Maybe it would be better to offer a few canned  
> layouts, all conforming to the HIG, that the user can choose in the  
> application preferences.

It's just a concept for now and probably I'll end being the only one  
using it, so HIG is not a big concern. It's not too much freedom for  
the user, but I understand your point, preset layouts is not what I  
want now.

> On the other hand, if the application is some sort of IB-like tool  
> for laying out user interfaces, then I would have reservations about  
> subclassing every possible control class that might go into the  
> window.

It's like this one, tho' nothing big as IB.
Actually I'm not sure how to instantiate controls programmatically but  
iirc this is better documented, maybe it's in Hillegass too.

> Overriding the window's sendEvent: (and maybe adding a category on  
> one or more control classes) is just one alternative.  Another  
> approach would be to wrap each control instance in a special class  
> that implements the desired behavior, similar to what IB does (or  
> used to do) IIRC.
> So I guess I would ask -- what is the ultimate purpose for the  
> draggable controls?

Create a window to, say, interface with a sqlite database. Not only  
you want to specify your elements like field, labels and image, but  
you want to arrange those on screen too. And later on you could decide  
that you want to rearrange those elements again, thus a button in the  
panel or a menu item will let you to switch between "use" and  
"arrange" mode.

What did you mean by suggesting to add a category on control classes?

--
Andrea