zebra barcode printer in vb.net 3: Interface Builder in Objective-C

Drawing DataMatrix in Objective-C 3: Interface Builder

currently selected by looking at the title bar of the Inspector window it will read Scroll View Attributes. The attributes available in the Inspector are those of the Scroll View rather than the table. Click again in the same place and the selection changes, to a round-cornered rectangle around the table. The Inspector window title bar now reads Table View Attributes, and now the attributes are those for the table. Change the number of columns in the Inspector window to 1 (use the stepper or type in the number). See Figure 3 7.

Now click again in the Table View; the selection changes again to a rounded rectangle around the column, and the Inspector title bar now reads Table Column Attributes. Set the Title property to Categories: . You can also select an individual Table Cell or the Table Header, to set its properties. This simple yet elegant mechanism enables you quickly to drill down through the object hierarchy to select and set properties at the appropriate level. Make sure you have configured each of the Table Views to have a single column and a title (the example has the title Items for the second Table View). Back in the user interface, look in the Inputs and Value section of the Library and drag out a Search Field (put it at the top) and a Label. Use the guides to match up the width of the Search Field to the Table View below it and to position the Label. For the Label,

set its Title attribute to Title: (or whatever you prefer), click the Draws background checkbox, and then click the Background color well to set a color.

Color wells in Mac OS X programs have a subtle property that users don t always immediately notice, which can cause some confusion. That is, the color well has a border that indicates when it is active. You will see on the Attributes panel in Figure 3 16 that there are color wells for the background and foreground, but only one Color Settings panel. How do you know which color well is the one whose color you are changing It s the one with the dark border. This may be obvious to you, dear reader, but many Mac users don t notice it even though it is a widely used feature of Mac OS X. You can toggle the active state of a color well by clicking the border. This is useful when you want to play with the Color Settings panel without the change appearing in your control. The final component to add to your user interface is a Text View (under Inputs & Values). Size it and position it to fit in the remaining space. Your user interface should look something like the left side of Figure 3 8.

Now run the simulator (File Simulate Interface or R) and try changing the window size (see right side of Figure 3 8). Horrible, isn t it The problem is that Interface Builder has no way of knowing how you want the individual components to behave when the containing window changes size. The results are rarely what you want, so you need to explicitly set the Autosizing behavior that you expect. You do this in the Size tab of the Inspector window. First, a general description of how the Autosizing controls work, then you can work through each one.

Select the first Table View (actually, its Scroll View container) again. Make sure the Size tab of the Inspector window is visible. The Autosize settings will look like those in Figure 3 9.