Package attachlayout

Contains a layout manager and its constraints that allow to organize components in a container by defining attachments for every side of a component (See also Sample included).

See:
Description

Interface Summary

AttachConstants

Defines and holds constants used with an AttachLayout.

Class Summary

AttachLayout	LayoutManager that allows to organize components in a container by defining attachments for every side of a component (See also Sample included).
AttachLayout.Constraints	Defines constraints by specifying an anchor, connection type and offset for every side of the component to lay out.

Package attachlayout Description

Contains a layout manager and its constraints that allow to organize components in a container by defining attachments for every side of a component (See also Sample included). An attachment is defined by specifying an anchor, connection type and offset.

Anchors

Possible anchors are the container's layout borders, other components in the same container, relative positions (percentages of container width or height), virtual boxes or no anchor at all.

Container's layout borders as anchor:

The container's layout borders are defined by the edge of the container minus container insets. When the TOP side of a component is attached, the anchor will be the container's top layout border, for the LEFT side the anchor is the container's left layout border, etc.

Components as anchor:

A component's side can be attached to any side of the same direction (horizontal or vertical) of any other component in the same container. A side of the horizontal direction (LEFT or RIGHT) can only be attached to another component's side of the horizontal direction (LEFT or RIGHT side). The same principle holds for sides of the vertical direction (TOP or BOTTOM).

Relative position as anchor:

A relative position is defined as a percentage of the container's layout area size. The layout area is the area inside the layout borders. For example, a relative position of 50 for the left side of a component, will attach the component's left side to the left-right center of the area in the container's layout borders.

Virtual box as anchor:

It is possible to add virtual boxes to the container's layout. These can be regarded as components wihtout a visible representation. When a box is added, its position and size is determined by the attachments defined for that box as if the box where a component. Added boxes can be used as anchor, similar to using components as anchors.

No anchor:

Not specifying an anchor for a side, allows a component to choose its own size in the direction of the unattached side. The component's size will be set to its preferred size in that direction or to the preferred size specified in the attachment of that component. The preferred size for a direction (width or height), if specified in an attachment for a component, always overrules the component's own preferred size in that direction. Invisible components are always treated as having a preferred size of 0 in both directions.

Connection types

Two connection types can be set when attached to an anchor: elastic or fixed. When set to fixed, the specified offset is interpreted as the exact distance (both minimum and maximum distance) between the anchor and the attached side. When set to elastic, the offset is interpreted as the minimum distance between anchor and attached side.

Offsets

Offsets can be specified depending on the anchor type: when attached to no anchor, no offset can be set.
The offset is the minimum distance in pixels between the anchor and the attached component's side. A positive offset always moves a component away from the anchor, a negative offset moves the component the opposite way. For example, when attaching a component's left side to another component (it does not matter to which side, left or right), a positive offset will move the attached component to the right. When attaching a component's right side to another component (left or right side), a positive offset will move the attached component to the left.
Invisible components are treated as having size and offsets 0 for all sides.

Resizing policy

By cleverly combining different attachments, it is very easy to also control the resizing policy of every component in both horizontal and vertical directions individually. See Sample included for details.