Can one design easily an interface that has panes?

[baseballgem]

I would like to know if VFP is capable of creating a form or forms that visually look like one screen but in fact contains has 3 (or 4) each would be a pane. (Borrowing the term from Web Design.) I created a simple one using 2 forms with no borders, but it seems tricky. I would think VFP would have a way of easily doing this without having to do tricky things.

One idea I have is in the left 3rd pane have a pick list. (thinner and long on left). The main third has the interface with it's buttons and text boxes. And the bottom third a scroll bar for text editing.
Will VFP 9 have any enhancements in this area of easily creating panes?

 

[terosoft]

You could use pageframes without page tabs and switch between tabs with the pick list.
For an example look at [VFP directory]\Tools
There´s a zip file there, expand it and look at "Wizards" folder. Almost all wizards use one window with untabbed pageframes.

Gerardo Czajkowski

 

[jimstarr]

From what you've said I don't see the need for multiple forms. Why not 1 large form with the controls for different functions in each quadrant? Simple lines could provide the look of panes.

Jim

 

[craigsboyd]

A few thoughts/ideas

1. Formset with individual child forms constituting the "panes" (I would call them panels).

2. Use VFP 9 and take advantage of the new dockable forms

3. Create toolbar classes and put containers of controls in the toolbars (I've actually done this and the result was really good....it had sliding panels on either side that could be docked on any side of the screen. I even had embedded help in a toolbar by using the browser control.

[sub]craig1442@mchsi.com[/sub][sup]

"Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad." - Anon​

[/sup]

 

[Mike Lewis]

Baseballgem,

I don't know if this is what you want, but Jeff Bowman has a window splitter class that you can use to divide a window into horizontal and vertical panes. The user can resize the panes with a simple drag and drop.

For more, see:

http://www.jeffbowman.com/files/SplitterBar.zip

Mike


Mike Lewis
Edinburgh, Scotland

My Visual Foxpro web site:

http://www.ml-consult.demon.co.uk

My Crystal Reports web site:

http://www.ml-crystal.com

 

[craigsboyd]

Mike,

That's a nice example, thanks.

[sub]craig1442@mchsi.com[/sub][sup]

"Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad." - Anon​

[/sup]