To add a new element to the layout, click the relevant button in any of the tabs in the button panel. The element is added as the child of the currently selected graph node. If nothing is currently selected, the element is added as the child of the last selected node.
Because construction of the interface layout is performed by selecting CAPI elements directly, you must be familiar with the way that these elements are used in the construction of an interface.
For instance, the first element to add to an interface is likely to be a CAPI layout element, such as an instance of the
row-layout
class or
column-layout
class. Not surprisingly, these types of element can be found in the Layouts tab of the button panel. Elements such as buttons or panes (or other layouts) are then added to this layout. In order to generate CAPI interfaces, it is important to understand that all window elements must be arranged inside a layout element in this way.
When you add an element to the design, two windows are updated:
When you add an item, an instance of that class is created. By default, the values of certain attributes are set so that the element can be displayed and the hierarchy layout updated in a sensible way. This typically means that name and title attributes are initialized with the name of the element that has been added, together with a numeric suffix. For instance, the first output pane that is added to an interface is called
Output-Pane-1
. You should normally change these attribute values to something more sensible, as well as set the values of other attributes. See Performing operations on objects for details about this.
For a practical introduction to the process of creating an interface using the Interface Builder, see Example: Using The Interface Builder.