User Interface Specification: Form Editor Toolbar
Author: Jan Rojcek
$Revision: 1.2 $
Document History: available in
CVS
Abstract: This document specifies appearance and behavior of form editor
toolbar in the new windowing system.
- Table of Contents:
- 1 Introduction
- 2 References
- 3 Detailed Spec
- 3.1 Form Editor Toolbar
- 3.2 Component Palette
- 3.3 Mouse Cursors
1 Introduction
The new windowing system modifies presentation of form editor in NetBeans IDE.
The form editor would be a regular document window open in the document window
area as a tab next to the source editor document window. There would be a
separate form editor instance for each open form object. The component palette
would be a separate window open in the window area. Due to this change, the
form editor toolbar ("Selection Mode", "Connection Mode", "Test Form" buttons)
should move from component palette to the form editor document window to make
the connection between the toolbar and form designer more obvious. Moving the
toolbar to form editor window would make it consistent with source editor
toolbar.
2 References
Moving the toolbar to form editor window is initiated by new windowing system:
3 Detailed Spec
3.1 Form Editor Toolbar
The form editor toolbar would contain following controls:
- Toggle button group - provides for switching between form editor modes.
It contains "Selection Mode" and "Connection Mode".
- Selection Mode toggle button - if selected the form editor is in
Selection mode.
- Connection Mode toggle button - if selected the form editor is in
Connection mode.
- Test button - if clicked, the Test action in form designer is
performed.
The toggle button group, used for switching the form editor modes, cooperates
with component palette. If a component button in palette is selected then all
the form editors are in "Add" mode. This also means that all form editor
instances share the mode.
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Figure 1: Form Editor Toolbar - Selection Mode
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Figure 2: Form Editor Toolbar - Add Mode
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3.2 Component Palette
Due to the move of toolbar from palette to form editor document window, the
toolbar buttons are no longer in the palette. This also requires a change in
component buttons behavior. In the current state the user can not unselect a
component button by clicking it. This needs to change, so that the component
buttons behave like a regular toggle buttons.
3.3 Mouse Cursors
As the component palette is a window, the connection between form editor
toolbar and palette is not as obvious as it was before. Mostly connection
between toolbar buttons that change the form editor modes and palette which
also changes a form editor mode is harder to notice and learn. Changing the
mouse cursor depending on a mode in which the form editor is, would help to
emphasize this relation.
When the mouse is over the form editor (toolbar and editing area) the mouse
cursor displays the state of form designer. If the form editor is in selection
mode, than the regular mouse pointer is shown. If it is in connection mode then
a special icon is shown. If it is in add mode, then 16x16 icon of selected bean
is added to the regular mouse cursor, as shown in the table below.
Important note is that the wait mouse cursor (hour glass) has a precedence over
the form editor cursors. It means if IDE is blocked and the wait cursor is
shown, the wait cursor is shown also over the form editor, in any form editor
mode. So, the hour glass cursor have to suppress the current form editor cursor.
Table 1: Mouse cursors over the Form editor
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Connection Mode
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Add Mode
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Add Mode 2
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Windows
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Motif
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Add Mode 2 is an example of Add Mode with smaller icon.
