Gui building questions

[art]

Hi,

Having played around with Gwt Designer for a couple of days I have a few more questions.

If I have a public (static) widget in another class and add it to the root panel the design view doesn't show it. The preview pane also doesn't show it, but hosted mode does as expected. Always having coded without visual tools I ask whether this is normal behavior?

Does Designer require all Gui initialization to be done in onModuleLoad? If I have another class (than the entry point class) as delegate for adding widgets to the rootpanel, the only way to show it (correct) in design view looks to be having this class implement EntryPoint (although it isn't really) and do the work in a onModuleLoad method. Is there anotherway of telling Designer where to look?

And (less important, but anyway ;-) the following:

Code: Select all

public void onModuleLoad() {
      RootPanel rootPanel = RootPanel.get();
      Button button = getButton();
                rootPanel.add(button, 10, 200);
   }
   
        public Button getButton() {
                 Button button = new Button("test");
                 button.setWidth("80%");
                 return button;
         }

shows alright in design view, but

Code: Select all

public void onModuleLoad() {
      RootPanel rootPanel = RootPanel.get();
      Button button = getButton();
      button.setWidth("80%");
                button.setText("failed");
                rootPanel.add(button, 10, 200);
   }
   
        public Button getButton() {
                 Button button = new Button("test");
                 return button;
         }

doesn't. Shows neither the width nor the new text.
What's going on here?

Art

[Eric Clayberg]

If I have a public (static) widget in another class and add it to the root panel the design view doesn't show it. The preview pane also doesn't show it, but hosted mode does as expected. Always having coded without visual tools I ask whether this is normal behavior?

Yes. GWT Designer parses the code for the class you are editing. It looks for the creation of widgets using standard constructors and displays those widgets in the design view. The tool does not support static factories defined with their own arbitrary API (you are in effect, defining your own GUI API that Designer has no way of understanding).

Does Designer require all Gui initialization to be done in onModuleLoad? If I have another class (than the entry point class) as delegate for adding widgets to the rootpanel, the only way to show it (correct) in design view looks to be having this class implement EntryPoint (although it isn't really) and do the work in a onModuleLoad method. Is there another way of telling Designer where to look?

GWT Designer supports editing EntryPoints, Composites, DialogBoxes and PopupPanels. EntryPoints define their contents starting in the onModuleLoad() method while the others start in their constructors. Designer does not support widgets added by some arbitrary non-GUI helper class (again that is equivalent to defining your own GUI API). If you want to define your widgets somewhere other than the onModuleLoad() method, place them in a Composite and then place the Composite in your EntryPoint.

And (less important, but anyway the following:

Code: Select all

public void onModuleLoad() {
   RootPanel rootPanel = RootPanel.get();
   Button button = getButton();
                rootPanel.add(button, 10, 200);
}
   
public Button getButton() {
   Button button = new Button("test");
   button.setWidth("80%");
   return button;
}

shows alright in design view, but

Code: Select all

public void onModuleLoad() {
   RootPanel rootPanel = RootPanel.get();
   Button button = getButton();
   button.setWidth("80%");
   button.setText("failed");
   rootPanel.add(button, 10, 200);
}
   
public Button getButton() {
   Button button = new Button("test");
   return button;
}

doesn't. Shows neither the width nor the new text. What's going on here?

In the above case, Designer was only looking for widget property changes in the same scope in which the widget was created. The latest build should also look in the scope where the button is used.

[art]

Eric,

Thanks for your prompt info.
Is there a place (except for the forum) I can find detailed information about Designer like you are giving? I mean more detailed than the online manual.

Art

[Eric Clayberg]

Is there a place (except for the forum) I can find detailed information about Designer like you are giving?

Other than the forum? No.