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SBARS_SIZEGRIP and SBARS_TOOLTIPS: need some extra code to be generated to work. For now, doc says “Requires ... message”.

SBARS_TOOLTIPS: no way to specify hint(s).

Remove them from OI for now?

TCS_SCROLLOPPOSITE: I am not sure what this is supposed to do, but it does not seem to do anything. Googling didn’t help. Perhasp it should be removed from OI.

TCS_TOOLTIPS: There is no Hint property for a Page. Remove it from OI until there is?

See the doc for the many requirements. It would be good to have OI help the user not to choose combinations of styles that MS does not intend to work.

TBSTYLE_TOOLTIPS: not needed in OI because Koda knows whether Hints have been specified. So suggest remove TBSTYLE_TOOLTIPS for now.

TBSTYLE_ALTDRAG: Doc would say “Allows changing a button’s position by Alt-dragging it, rather than Shift-dragging it. Requires CCS_ADJUSTABLE”. Also doc would describe CCA_ADJUSTABLE as “enables user to add, delete, and rearrange buttons”. CCA_ADJUSTABLE is defined in Constants.au3. Suggesting adding styles is beyond my current scope, so I suggest removing TBSTYLE_ALTDRAG for now.

TBSTYLE_LIST does not seem to work, so I suggest removing it from OI.

TBSTYLE_CUSTOMERASE: Doc would say “Generates NM_CUSTOMDRAW notification codes when toolbar processes WM_ERASEBKGND messages”. This is not generated by Koda, so I suggest removing it from OI.

TBSTYLE_REGISTERDROP: Doc would say “Generates TBN_GETOBJECT notification codes to request drop target objects when the cursor passes over toolbar buttons”. This is not generated by Koda, so I suggest removing it from OI.

Extended Styles: Bug: won’t stay checked, so can’t test them.

TBSTYLE_EX_MIXEDBUTTONS: Requires TBSTYLE_LIST, which doesn’t seem to work. So I suggest removing TBSTYLE_EX_MIXEDBUTTONS from OI.

TBSTYLE_EX_HIDECLIPPEDBUTTONS: AutoIt help says “Hides partially clipped buttons”. To me buttons could only be partly clipped if buttons were added. CCS_ADJUSTABLE is not in OI, so I suggest removing TBSTYLE_EX_HIDECLIPPEDBUTTONS for now.

I am attaching a screen shot of what I have in mind. This dialog would be accessible from Edit | Tab Order and from each real (not substitute) control. From the menu, it would appear as in the screen shot. From a control, if the control is a group, the group would be highlighted. If the control is not in a group, Form1 would be highlighted.

Note that Koda would not show sequence numbers of tabstops. This would be internal to fd.exe. Users won’t need sequence numbers if they have the information visually. The user would no longer have to think the numbers. With the proposed dialog, he would get all the tabstop info in one place. This makes sense to me because tabstops are really inter-control rather than intra-control.

Optimally, Add would only be enabled when the Not tabstops .. list has focus and an item is selected. Up, Down and Remove would only be enabled when the Tabstops list has focus and an item is selected (and of course, Up would be disabled if the top item is selected, and Down would disabled if the last item is selected).

If this proposal is implemented, I would suggest:

• In Properties, Tab Order would be replaced with Tabstop, which would be read-only boolean , with a ... button to the right to access the Editor
• In Styles, WS_TABSTOP would be removed. fd.exe would continue to track WS_TABSTOP.

It is possible that, early in designing a form, a user may wish to make some controls tabstops, and others not; he may wish to refine the order later. So the Tabstop property could be read-write. If it is, I suggest:

• If the user changes Tabstop for a control from False to True, the control would be placed at the end of the Tabstops list
• If the user changes Tabstop for a control from True to False, the control would be moved from the Tabstops list to the Not tabstops, but can be list.
• For Label (and other controls that cannot be tabbed to), the Tabstop property would be set to False and would be read-only.

I acknowledge that AutoIt tabs in the order in which calls to GuiCtrl functions that specify WS_TABSTOP appear in the script. The code generator could generate in the order shown: first the Tabstop list (with WS_TABSTOP set), then the others (without TABSTOP set), although this is not requisite.

I think that this proposal mostly improves the UI. It does clear up what I called an inconsistency in my previous post – although I may be wrong. I think that the code under the hood will change very little.

I have done some playing with (and thinking about) the names of the lists. Alternative names are: Un-tabable, Potential tabstops and Tabstops. I don’t like Un-tabable because it is bad English.

WS_GROUP and WS_MINIMIZEBOX have the same value, so WS_GROUP is not a constant for a Form. So remove WS_GROUP. See  FS#267 .

The value of WS_OVERLAPPED is zero. It has no mask. So I suggest that it be removed from OI.

WS_SIZEBOX and WS_THICKFRAME have the same value, so I suggest removing WS_THICKFRAME.

WS_TABSTOP and WS_MAXIMIZE have the same value, so WS_TABSTOP is not a constant for a Form. So I suggest removing WS_TABSTOP.

Style 94C8 0000 generates $WS_SYSMENU,$WS_POPUP. It should generate $WS_POPUPWINDOW, $WS_CAPTION.

Microsoft says of DS_FOREGROUND:

Causes the system to use the SetForegroundWindow function to bring the dialog box to the foreground

AutoIt does not seem to provide SetForegroundWindow functionality.

So I suggest the DS_FOREGROUND be removed.

WS_EX_TOPMOST provides “stay on top”.

I set the Color of a Listbox to clBtnFace. It showed OK in the Design Area but when Run. the box was white.

Properties | Picture always seems to show None even when a .bmp is loaded and appears in the Design Area.

I have made some more progress: I have improved the Form dialog, and present the Label dialog for the first time.

I am beginning to think about Pic, Icon and Graphic. Here are my thoughts:

The following SS constants only apply to an image: SS_BITMAP, SS_ICON, SS_REALSIZECONTROL, SS_REALSIZEIMAGE and SS_RIGHTJUST. Which of these does Picture Editor handle? Which does the proposed Styles Editor need to handle?

I have learnt that ControlSetText() can be used to show text in an apparently image-only Static control. So the Styles Editor for Pic, Icon and Graphic could look much the same as that for Label. Would it be identical?

It occurs to me that if Koda will have a Styles Dialog for images that has styles for text, it would make sense to have Code Generator generate the call to ControlSetText().

More thoughts are in the attached readmes.

When I tried to open a file that I had moved, Koda said “F:\ ... is not exists”. Correct English usage is “does not exist”.

I have written in the proposed Help:

To select all controls in an area of the active form, hold the left mouse button down and drag to select an area of the form. All controls wholely within, and partly within, this area are selected.

This often does not work when I try to select several controls in a Group, and is driving me nuts with the Style dialogs.

I suggest that Koda be changed such that:

• clicking within a Group in the Design area does not select the Group
• a Group can only be selected in the Design Area by clicking on (or near) its border, not on a drag handle.

I noticed that labels with the style SS_ETCHEDHORZ would shrink when you switched tabs. It could be a bug in aligning to grid as it seems to step down 4 pixels on change.

I pasted this from the Clipboard (not expecting it to work):

	$testForm = GUICreate("Test Form", $vec[2]-20, $vec[3]-30, $vec[0]+10, $vec[1]+15,$WS_POPUP)
	Local $height = 17
	If IsChecked($chkHorizBar) Then $height = 35
	$t = "Koda"
	GUICtrlCreateInput($t, 8, 8, $vec[3]-16, $height,$gParamStyles,$gParamExStyles)
	GUICtrlCreateLabel("Press Esc key to continue", 8, 80, 164, 40)

and clicked on Process.

I got:

Exception handled 2011-06-19 at 17:41:29 by MainExceptionHandler
Could not convert variant of type (String) into type (Boolean)
Exception Address: 00410E21
Information about Source of Exception
Unit: Variants
Method: HandleConversionException
Line: 0

I expected graceful failure.

With the attached .kxf file, the icon is visible at design time but not at run time. The icon is number 0 in shell32.dll. Other icons in shell32.dll work OK. Icon 0 in moricons.dll also does not work.

This may be an AutoIt error. If it is, is there a way for Koda to work around AutoIt’s bug?

1. I created a form in the Design Area but did not save it.
2. I clicked the Generate icon.
3. At the Code window, “Save to file” showed. I clicked on it.
4. Koda said “Your current form is not saved. In order to use the Update function, you must save the form before saving the script”.

But I wasn’t using the Update function, so I suggest that “In order to use the Update function” be dropped from this messagebox.

BTW Yesterday I met a message that contained “it’s”. There is a growing tendency in English usage to use “it’s” rather than “its”. Correct usage is:

• “it’s” is the abbreviated form of “it is”, just as “wasn’t” is an abbreviated form of “was not”. The “‘” shows that one or more characters are missing.
• “its” is an exception to the general rule that “‘s” indicates possession, as in “Koda’s design”, which is exactly equivalent to “the design of Koda”
• “its design” is good English.

There are cases in computer-eze where I do use “‘s” to indicate a plural because it seems to be the only way to be clear. An example: “there are five #include’s in my script”.

Should be ListBox.au3

See attached file

Probably not used much, but should be there.

When code is generated for the attached .kxf, the #Region line is:

> #Region ### START Koda GUI section ### Form=F:\AutoIt scripts\Koda devel\Styles dialogs\List styles suggestion.kxf

I don’t know how the path got included in this line. I can tell you that I did the following early in developing the List script:

• In Koda, saved the Group script as List styles suggestion.kxf in F:\AutoIt scripts\Koda devel\Styles dialogs
• Changed Group to List in the form, and saved it again
• Saved the Group script as List script
• Changed the #Region line from Group to List
• Exited Koda and ran it again
• Chose Update script

Now Update script complains some of the time when I do Update script.

I know that on one occasion when I had trouble, I had most recently saved F:\AutoIt scripts\Koda devel\Listbox example.kxf. I had exited Koda and had run it again. I then probably opened the List script, then closed Listbox example.kxf. So for a time, forms in 2 different directories were open.

Sorry I can’t be more specific.

Now Update script is working OK. But I note that Generate shows the full path yet only fnam.ext is in the #Region line in the script.

I will try to be more specific when it happens again.

BTW The List form and script are still being designed.

The attached .kxf file shows that for the dd code, zero fits easily on the line when the form is run. If I remove the \n\r in Strings Editor, they return when I close SE. SE does not seem to know that the font is Courier New 8pt.

It would make sense to me to have one Ctrl_Z undo all changes to a string, rather than character-by-character.

I have not figured out how this works.

From a color wheel in another app, I chose a light yellow: RGB (248,248,164). I converted to hex: (F8,F8,A4). In TAEdit Properties, I entered 0xF8F8A4. It showed as light cyan.

Please explain.

I think it would be clearer if File | Open were split into two:

• File | Open Form
• File | Open Forms in Script

The filter on the first one would be *.kxf, and on the second *.au3

I realize that Open Forms in Script is not optimum, but I think it would be an improvement on the present situation. It could have a hint: Open all forms referenced in a script.

The attached .kxf does not display as I would expect.

The attached .kxf shows one font size in Design Area and a smaller size when run.

This problem may be related to another. This dialog shows as designed if I change the font size to 8.5 points in AutoIt. Koda won’t let me set the font size to 8.5.

The first attached file shows AU3 Import code I pasted. (It is from Date Picker styles with presets suggestion.au3.)

The second shows the result of clicking on Process.

It appears that Koda did not process the GuiCtrlSetData.

The auto-height seems to be correct at 168, but the vertical centering is off a bit, so when Autosize is True, the bottom of the Today line is hidden.

It is likely that there are other cases where centering is a bit off, e.g. Align | Center Vertically in Window.

Koda calls them hints but AutoIt and Windows call them tooltips.

I think that Koda should use the same term as AutoIt.

Right now, the Treeview Styles dialog has a checkbox called Hints (tooltips) show.

I am working on the ListView styles dialog. It is almost full-screen: about 40 controls.

I would like to keep Object Inspector on top of the Form. When I am working on controls on the right-hand side, it can sit over the left side of the form. How do I do it? OI keeps getting under the Form.

$ListView1 = GUICtrlCreateListView("|", 128, 56, 257, 289, BitOR($GUI_SS_DEFAULT_LISTVIEW,$LVS_NOCOLUMNHEADER))

was generated by Koda, and does not work with 2 columns: the second column shows as blank.

$ListView1 = GUICtrlCreateListView(" | ", 128, 56, 257, 289, BitOR($GUI_SS_DEFAULT_LISTVIEW,$LVS_NOCOLUMNHEADER))

does work.

Koda then generated:

GUICtrlSendMsg(-1, $LVM_SETCOLUMNWIDTH, 0, 50)
GUICtrlSendMsg(-1, $LVM_SETCOLUMNWIDTH, 1, 200)

Apparently AutoIt needs a space before and after the |.

I consider this to be an AutoIt bug, but Koda is the servant of AutoIt, so ...

If AutoIt ever fixes this bug, Koda code generation will still be OK with “<space>|<space> “.

I added a listbox, deleted it, and then was adding a combobox. A error window popped up. See
using the latest version. My OS is Windows 7 64bit.

I have some labels in my program but when I set longer text in them it overflows and line breaks. So I prolonged them in Koda, saved, updated script with CTRL+U and it worked. Unfortunatelly next time after opening the KXF file I found all labels to have width and height reset back to the values set after their creation! Pretty dumb...I think this is a bug
I found out it happens not only after reopening the form, but randomly during development when the project is open. The only workaround seems to be to add a lot of spaces to a label’s caption

I created a duplicate of the “Events Example” template, renamed it, then edited it to my
I select the new template and generate code, the code is still based on “Events Example” instead of my template.

I have been working with Koda for quite a few years
of the most annoying parts of the GUI editor is where i alter the height of inputboxes, comboboxes etc and adjust them to a value where these objects become smaller than the original value (input boxes have a value of 21, i rather cram the contents in 16 pixels which works just as nice).

Koda does accept it and adjusts on the form, but the minute i do something with the form in general or drag the object that is carrying it (frame) somewhere else, the height-value is being set back to the original
can also save the form with its values, but when i reload, all values are reset to the original values that seem to be the “minimum” for those objects.

I rather don’t have Koda to touch these properties in any situation, they are manually adjusted for a reason.

add a option ‘set caption also set name’,set name do nothing with caption.

or add a right menu ‘set caption as form name’ to property list.

         thanks!

I am vietnamese,i use the unicode,but koda don’t support it,we need it,thanks

It would be helpful if the Help mentioned how to access the property editors. A few are obvious, but one that is not is the TreeView Editor. There may be more that have this problem.

The Help says “Paste previously copied/cut objects from clipboard into current cursor position”.

Attached is what actually happened when I tried it.

All I can say is that Paste didn’t work as documented. I don’t know how it should work: I am thinking about it.

For the time being, I will document it the way it actually works.

VB5 pastes to the top left of the client area, independent of where the cursor is.

...chris

If there are two Koda regions in a .au3 file, say foo.kxf and bar.kxf, will Update Script work both when foo.kxf is the active form and when bar.kxf is the active form?

It seems to me that this is possible, but the current documentation does not say so.

Are the Windows here all the windows in Koda, i.e. Object Treeview, Object Inspector, Form List, and forms?

I have not figured out what the following checkboxes really do:

• Keep standard layout

• Snap wimdows (to the grid?)

• Choices in Size and position saving (especially the difference between Don’t save abd Manually)

I have looked at the doc as I received it. It doesn’t help.

BTW the screen shot here is obsolete: we need a new one. Please supply.

BTW “Always full expand” should be “Always fully expand”

Description is in the doc but not in Object Inspector. Do I remove Description from doc?

Please update controls_tab_add.png, i.e. with Add a Page rather than New Page. I could do it, but my colors are different from yours.

The doc as I received it says:

Starting from WinXP the “visual” height of combo cannot be set. Height parameter is showing height of opened combo. Koda allow you to change it manually.

I don’t quite understand.

Does this say the same thing:

Windows XP and up set the opened height of a Combobox. The Height property is the height of the closed Combobox.

My playing around shows that the height of the closed control is fixed in Design Area and at run-time (perhaps font-size dependent), and that when opened, the height is sufficient to show at least 15 items.

menu_align.png had Horizontal rather than Horizontally. etc.

I uploaded an updated version, but the old version still shows.

New version is attached.

I am inclined to think that Styles and ExStyles should be added to the documentation – for each control in the Controls section. That way, Koda goes even further to being the “one stop” place for GUIs.

Any thoughts?

Include would make the process less painful. There are some WS_ constants that are available to almost all controls, so it would be nice to be able to include multiple rows of a table in one VAR. Can Include do this?

I would copy the stuff from AutoIt, perhaps doing some re-wording where I can make things clearer (but mostly the AutoIt doc is fairly clear on Styles).

The Styles for Form are a problem: Microsoft defined them in odd ways. I can’t do much about that!

Should I create a commstyle page like commctrl?

1. Create a new “Tabbed Pages”
Change the name of the first tab to “TabSheet1
Generate form code
File, Import, Import Autoit GUI

$Form1 = GUICreate(”Title”, 300, 200, -1,
= GUICtrlCreateListView(”A|B|C”, 15, 15, 270,
$LVM_SETCOLUMNWIDTH, 0,
$LVM_SETCOLUMNWIDTH, 1,
$LVM_SETCOLUMNWIDTH, 2,

Column widths are not imported from AU3 to KXF.