How to properly use the horiz_align arguments for an UI form ?

Pierre,

I would do this with a grid layout, but rather than having the Boolean Button fields with a buttonText with the prompt you want, use ?buttonText " " (it has to be a non-empty string) and create a separate label field for the prompt. Then you can have the label in the first column (column 0), the boolean buttons in the second column (column 1) and the fioats in the third (column 2). Then everything aligns beautifully.

Using form layouts and hoping the contents of each sub-layout to have alignment between them is hard to do - it's much cleaner to put everything in the same grid layout and then you have full control.

Andrew

Hello Andrew, 

Thanks for your advice. Adding and extra column for labels seems to be the way to go.

This led me to think I could use the same trick on the right side of the grid, with a dummy column containing " " labels (?invisible set to t also works). Then by setting 'col_stretch argument I can have only the outer columns (labels and dummy col) to change when  the form is stretched. And the important fields  (button and float fields) remain packed together in the middle so this is great !

 

(I made some blank buttons in the last row to see the actual size of fields in each column)

For the 'horiz_align argument I believe it was not effective because the fields were already as large as the columns. It would probably only work with fields of various size within each column.
Thanks again !

Pierre

Pierre,

Rather than creating dummy labels to provide extra stretch, the usual approach is to use hiCreateHorizontalBoxLayout or hiCreateVerticalBoxLayout with a list('stretch_item 1) entry to provide the extra stretch. Here's an example (with additional stretch on left and right to allow the fields to be centred - not something I'm a big fan of, but each to their own; also has additional stretch at the bottom so that the fields don't spread out as the form height is stretched).

hiCreateLayoutForm(
  'TestForm
  "Test Form"
  hiCreateVerticalBoxLayout(
    'vbox
    ?items list(
      hiCreateHorizontalBoxLayout(
        'hbox
        ?items list(
          list('stretch_item 1) ; stretchable padding
          hiCreateGridLayout(
            'findViaParams
            ?frame nil
            ?items
              list(
                list( hiCreateLabel(?name 'lab1 ?labelText "cutWidth" ?justification 'right) 'row 0 'col 0 )
                list( hiCreateLabel(?name 'lab2 ?labelText "cutHeight" ?justification 'right) 'row 1 'col 0 'horiz_align 'right)
                list( hiCreateLabel(?name 'lab3 ?labelText "cutRows" ?justification 'right) 'row 2 'col 0 'horiz_align 'right)
                list( hiCreateLabel(?name 'lab4 ?labelText "cutColumns" ?justification 'right) 'row 3 'col 0 'horiz_align 'right)
                list( hiCreateBooleanButton( ?name 'bool0 ?buttonText " " ?callback nil ) 'row 0 'col 1 )
                list( hiCreateBooleanButton( ?name 'bool1 ?buttonText " " ?callback nil ) 'row 1 'col 1 )
                list( hiCreateBooleanButton( ?name 'bool2 ?buttonText " " ?callback nil ) 'row 2 'col 1 )
                list( hiCreateBooleanButton( ?name 'bool3 ?buttonText " " ?callback nil ) 'row 3 'col 1 )
                list( hiCreateFloatField( ?name 'param0 ?callback nil ) 'row 0 'col 2 )
                list( hiCreateFloatField( ?name 'param1 ?callback nil ) 'row 1 'col 2 )
                list( hiCreateFloatField( ?name 'param2 ?callback nil ) 'row 2 'col 2 )
                list( hiCreateFloatField( ?name 'param3 ?callback nil ) 'row 3 'col 2 )

                ;list( 'col_stretch 0 1 )
                ;list( 'col_stretch 1 0 )
                list( 'col_min_width 2 40)
              )
          )
          list('stretch_item 1) ; stretchable padding
        )
      )
    list('stretch_item 1) ; stretchable padding
    )
  )
)
hiDisplayForm(TestForm)

Regards,

Andrew

I see, this way you avoid creating dummy labels which overloads the code for a not so good reason..
It's all starting to make sense for me how grid and box layouts can be combine to achieve the desired output. I surely overlooked this 'spacer_item when reading the docs.

This is really helpful, thank you Andrew.

I tend to commonly use the hiCreateVerticalBoxLayout trick around an hiCreateGridLayout as often I want the width of some of the fields within the grid to stretch to fill the space, but I want the height to stay as-is and not have the fields spread out - this use of a stretch_item really helps for that.

Anyway, glad it helped!

Andrew