GUI design

Overview

When working on lazarus, certain design guidelines need to be taken into consideration. To prevent a diversity of styles and ensure the clarity of dialogs. The next article tries to summarize several guidelines to help you designing.

Dialogs

Dialogs are special forms that need the user to make / change some setting before lazarus can continue.

Dialog Settings

Settings that should be applied in general are;

• BorderStyle : bsSizeable
• Position : poScreenCenter
• FormStyle : fsStayOnTop (or show the dialog using ShowModal)

General layout

• On the bottom all required buttons to close / cancel the dialog, or to recieve help should be placed
• At least fit a screen of 800x640
• Close on Escape (if key not used otherwise)
• Define default button and Return activates it (if key not used)
• Medium to complex dialogs should be resizable and size is stored

Button panel

The button panel should consist at least of the following elements;

• OK button
• Cancel button
• Next button (optional)
• Previous button (optional)
• Help button

An example is shown below:

bottom panel.jpg

Dialogs to be converted to LFM

Bold items are already converted Italic items are being worked on

• /lazarus/ide/addtoprojectdlg.pas
• /lazarus/ide/buildlazdialog.pas
• /lazarus/ide/clipboardhistory.pas
• /lazarus/ide/codetemplatedialog.pp
• /lazarus/ide/codetoolsdefines.pas
• /lazarus/ide/codetoolsoptions.pas
• /lazarus/ide/compileroptionsdlg.pp
• /lazarus/ide/diffdialog.pas
• /lazarus/ide/diskdiffsdialog.pas
• /lazarus/ide/editoroptions.pp
• /lazarus/ide/environmentopts.pp
• /lazarus/ide/exttooldialog.pas
• /lazarus/ide/exttooleditdlg.pas
• /lazarus/ide/findinfilesdlg.pas
• /lazarus/ide/findreplacedialog.pp
• /lazarus/ide/helpmanager.pas
• /lazarus/ide/inputfiledialog.pas
• /lazarus/ide/keymapping.pp
• /lazarus/ide/macropromptdlg.pas
• /lazarus/ide/mainbar.pas
• /lazarus/ide/makeresstrdlg.pas
• /lazarus/ide/msgview.pp
• /lazarus/ide/newdialog.pas
• /lazarus/ide/newprojectdlg.pp
• /lazarus/ide/patheditordlg.pas
• /lazarus/ide/projectinspector.pas
• /lazarus/ide/projectopts.pp
• /lazarus/ide/runparamsopts.pas
• /lazarus/ide/searchresultview.pp
• /lazarus/ide/sortselectiondlg.pas
• /lazarus/ide/splash.pp
• /lazarus/ide/sysvaruseroverridedlg.pas
• /lazarus/ide/todolist.pp
• /lazarus/ide/unitdependencies.pas
• /lazarus/ide/uniteditor.pp
• /lazarus/ide/unitinfodlg.pp
• /lazarus/ide/viewunit_dlg.pp
• /lazarus/debugger/debuggerdlg.pp
• /lazarus/debugger/watchpropertydlg.pp
• /lazarus/designer/aligncompsdlg.pp
• /lazarus/designer/designermenu.pp
• /lazarus/designer/menueditorform.pas
• /lazarus/designer/menupropedit.pp
• /lazarus/designer/noncontrolforms.pas
• /lazarus/designer/objinspext.pas
• /lazarus/designer/scalecompsdlg.pp
• /lazarus/designer/sizecompsdlg.pp
• /lazarus/doceditor/fmmakeskel.pp
• /lazarus/doceditor/frmabout.pp
• /lazarus/doceditor/frmbuild.pp
• /lazarus/doceditor/frmexample.pp
• /lazarus/doceditor/frmlink.pp
• /lazarus/doceditor/frmmain.pp
• /lazarus/doceditor/frmmakeskel.pp
• /lazarus/doceditor/frmnewnode.pp
• /lazarus/doceditor/frmoptions.pp
• /lazarus/doceditor/frmtable.pp
• /lazarus/ideintf/columndlg.pp
• /lazarus/ideintf/componenteditors.pas
• /lazarus/ideintf/graphpropedits.pas
• /lazarus/ideintf/imagelisteditor.pp
• /lazarus/ideintf/listviewpropedit.pp
• /lazarus/ideintf/propedits.pp
• /lazarus/packager/addtopackagedlg.pas
• /lazarus/packager/brokendependenciesdlg.pas
• /lazarus/packager/packagedefs.pas
• /lazarus/packager/pkggraphexplorer.pas
• /lazarus/packager/pkgoptionsdlg.pas
• /lazarus/debugger/test
• /lazarus/tools/apiwizz/apiwizard.pp